John Menick

I’ve rarely blogged about code-related technology here, but in an effort to break with my own insignificant tradition, I want to add to the chorus of voices decrying the discontinuation of the Google SOAP search API. Not only is the SOAP API going bye-bye, but it’s AJAX replacement is abysmal. Please, Google, bring it back. I’ve installed the SOAP API on every Web site I’ve worked on since Google released it, and now, when I was about to do so again, you’ve gone and discontinued it.

Why is the new code inadequate? Oh, let me count the ways:

1) I love the ads. Cute. My non-profit clients will love them too. How can we turn them off without a clumsy CSS solution? Can someone get back to this guy? He asked his question in October of last year.

2) Formatting? Anyone? Is anyone there? Can someone please update that “Coming soon” in the developer’s guide.

3) Most clients want text (i.e. web) searches of their sites. They couldn’t care less about video or news. Why does it seem like all the developer documents foreground everything except web search.

4) And, oh yeah: Why AJAX? AJAX is wonderful, if you surf the Web with javascript enabled, and if you can install any browser you want on your machine… but these two things aren’t always possible, hence, a broken search page. Why is this thing only in AJAX?

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to spend some time fooling around with an AJAX-based API for search. I would even spend some time messing with one in alpha let alone beta version, but please, Google, if you are going to replace a great product, replace it with one that at least has a complete instruction manual. Otherwise, Yahoo beckons…