Do you use Yahoo Pipes? If not, you should. | Hacker News Reader

Do you use Yahoo Pipes? If not, you should.

searchenginejournal.com

30 pointsworkhorse10 comments

I have several Yahoo Pipes running which take various RSS feeds and replace the blurbs with the full article text (http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b26addb2e01415dbf... ). As a programmer I found it quite frustrating to use; very limiting (as with all "visual programming" interfaces) and somewhat buggy. However, it does get the job done and it's free.

I actually much preferred AppJet for this sort of work, as it could execute arbitrary Javascript and make arbitrary HTTP requests with cookies, etc. I wrote an RSS feed munger that logged into my WSJ account to download full articles with AppJet. I was really disappointed when AppJet was discontinued.

YQl can execute server side JS now, give it a shot.

Sweet! That must be new since the last time I looked at YQL. Looks very promising. Hopefully YQL lasts longer than AppJet did...

YQL (the Pipes sister product) is more programmer friendly, and also free. Give YQL a go if the Pipes visual UI doesn't work for you (and it has lots of yummy server side JS goodness too).

Link: http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/console

Requires Yahoo ID to use the demo console, but YQL doesn't need that when you make the web service calls.

I wanted to share an article I wrote on Yahoo Pipes because of the value it provides.

If you read Hacker News, I am willing to bet you read at least 10 other publications.

Yahoo Pipes will allow you to mashup RSS feeds with the ability to filter the noise.

Yahoo Pipes was probably the single greatest tool I have found for filtering content in the last 6 months.

I've used it some, it is what I think of generally when I think of OOP that what is going on is visually like Pipes, or other visual languages like vvvv, or Lily, etc... here's a pipe I made for the buses in and around Columbus, OH http://pipes.yahoo.com/th0ma5/cota1

I wrote a pipe for Hacker News RSS (so that the main link would go to the comments page rather than the original site). It worked perfectly when it worked. And then would spend weeks not updating, or saying that the gateway wasn't found, or some other bizarre error that was beyond my control.

At which point I gave up.

Is it wise to use Yahoo! Pipes for anything crucial in your app? (considering they've turned search over to MS and have been the subject of acquisition rumors)

Has Yahoo! committed to keeping it running long term?

Good question. I use Pipes at the moment, it is very useful and an integral part of some of my apps. It would mess me up majorly if they changed this, 2 or 3 weeks work. Lets hope they give us plenty of warning.

Also, I find the docs for pipes rubbish, lots of references to old versions.

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