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bpedroon Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2026)

https://github.com/imminent-technology/http-search-query-lan...

Research on which query language to use when performing search/query operations over HTTP — specifically in the context of the new HTTP QUERY method.

Use this research to figure out, for your own API, whether one of the 68 query languages analyzed here already fits the query content of a QUERY request — or whether none of them do, and you're better off designing a brand new, purpose-built query language instead.

bpedroon An Interactive Approach to API Prototyping Using OpenAPI

Your approach seems interesting because it removes some of the barriers to entry for non-technical people.

bpedroon API Complexity Is a Lie

That's a great example of adding features and feeding the complexity instead of offering what customers want.

bpedroon Deactivating an API, one step at a time

These are great suggestions.

I'll write about it the next time I'm in a similar situation.

bpedroon Deactivating an API, one step at a time

Great question.

As a consumer, you can set up an alert when any of your API requests has a deprecation or sunset HTTP header. You'd know immediately if any of the APIs you depend on is about to be deactivated.

bpedroon Three Open-Source API Reference Alternatives

I compared three open-source OpenAPI reference generators that work with Express.js almost out of the box.

bpedroon API Size Matters

There are APIs with more than 1,000 paths. However, most have less than 10.

bpedroon Are All Your APIs Insecure?

That's a great point, and that's why I explicitly used the word suspicious. If you deploy a new version, then the tool you use to detect suspicious activity should take that into account.

And no, this is not a pitch. I don't work nor am endorsed by any of the services mentioned in the article.

bpedroon Bideo.js – Easy Background HTML5 Videos

You can always use a polyfill like this one: https://github.com/jonathantneal/fitie

bpedroon Bideo.js – Easy Background HTML5 Videos

Interesting solution but can't it be achieved with the object-fit CSS property?

Using `object-fit: cover` will make the video resize maintaining its aspect ratio and filling its entire box.

See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/object-fit for more info.

bpedroon Ask HN: What project are you working on?

Working on API Changelog, a service that notifies you whenever any of the APIs you follow changes their documentation:

https://www.apichangelog.com/all

bpedroon API Documentation Change Notifications API Changelog

Thanks for sharing, Edward! Please send any feedback.

bpedroon Ask HN: What makes an API good?

I know what makes it bad: http://nordicapis.com/5-reasons-why-developers-are-not-using...

bpedroon Best practices for API versioning?

You might also be interested in this article: http://apiux.com/2013/05/14/api-versioning/

bpedroon Ask HN: How do you generate fake data?

E.g. testing an API method that creates a contact.

You'd need to craft fake names, phone numbers, email addresses, etc.

bpedroon Ask HN: How do you generate fake data?

Fake names, phone numbers, addresses, etc.

"Lorem Ipsum" style data.

bpedroon Programming Language Analysis

Great job!

You might want to prevent anyone from updating your data and influence the results by applying a document update validation function: http://docs.couchdb.org/en/latest/ddocs.html#validate-docume...

bpedroon 10k+ API directory

It's quite interesting to compare it to ProgrammableWeb API directory (http://www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory) which has 10,555 entries.

bpedroon Shown HN: texit - Embed LaTeX anywhere on the web

WordPress can render LaTeX since I can remember.

Example:

- http://l.wordpress.com/latex.php?latex=\displaystyle%20w_{a,...

- or a simpler one: http://l.wordpress.com/latex.php?latex=\frac{\pi}{2}&bg=ffff...

bpedroon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2013)

CloudWork (Barcelona, Spain - no remote)

We're hiring a Backend PHP Developer.

Apply here: http://getapp.mytribehr.com/careers/view/17

bpedroon Know Your HTTP Well

Great stuff! Makes it really easy to offer human readable messages instead of HTTP codes in your app.

If you're just looking for HTTP codes, here's the link to the JSON file: https://github.com/andreineculau/know-your-http-well/blob/ma...

bpedroon YC Will Now Fund Nonprofits Too

I'm not sure I understand your argument. I never said that the motivator was ending up with more money.

But yes, they will pay less taxes.

So, if their tax rate is 35%, every donated dollar costs them only 65 cents.

bpedroon YC Will Now Fund Nonprofits Too

Interesting move by YC as a way of paying less taxes and helping nonprofits at the same time!

bpedroon How OAuth 2 trumps Basic authentication

As written in the article, one of the advantages is avoiding things like the man-in-the-middle SSL exploit.

bpedroon A LaTeX-Package that comes up with synonyms for 'Therefore,'

It's already available: http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb30-2/tb95neveln.pdf

bpedroon Ask HN: How are you storing OAuth access keys and secrets?

Storing credentials in plain text is not something that you'd want to do if you want to prevent an attacker to easily access them.

bpedroon How to localize your API

Thanks for the feedback.

I can't replicate that problem but I'm going to investigate how you got those GET parameters on the link.

bpedroon 2 steps to better API Error Codes

That's an interesting HTTP status codes cheat sheet.

bpedroon Ask HN: After connecting to a data source, what URL do you visit to test?

What kind of data source? Can you be more specific?

If you're talking about Web APIs, you usually want to connect to an endpoint that gives you information about the user or the API.

Some APIs offer an 'echo' endpoint just for testing, other APIs offer an endpoint that provides information about the user account.

bpedroon Ask: word processor with latex algorithm viable?

There are a few apps doing that already:

- http://www.bakoma-tex.com/ - http://dev.midnightcoding.org/projects/gummi