ConquerClub script API
Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 3:18 pmFor benefits for the script developers (e.g. the greasemonkey scripts) and the conquerclub devs it would be nice to further improve the API.
Currently, script developers have to heavily rely on markup information (HTML) to gather information. With the recent addition of the game history XML and the upcoming gamelog XML I think conquerclub made a good start in the right direction.
But as of now, we still have to rely on certain HTML elements to be there, which creates a really high coupling between the site and the scripts. Any change to the site could potentially result in multiple scripts to break. Good example of this was about a week ago when almost all scripts around broke.
The problem as described is very common in softwareland, I think a good solution would be webservices. Another option would be introducing more XML files. Either solution will essentially reduce the coupling and improve performance.
On this subject our neighbor Landgrab seems to do a pretty good job, they have specified a nice list of well documented webservices. Maybe we ought to follow their lead?
Currently, script developers have to heavily rely on markup information (HTML) to gather information. With the recent addition of the game history XML and the upcoming gamelog XML I think conquerclub made a good start in the right direction.
But as of now, we still have to rely on certain HTML elements to be there, which creates a really high coupling between the site and the scripts. Any change to the site could potentially result in multiple scripts to break. Good example of this was about a week ago when almost all scripts around broke.
The problem as described is very common in softwareland, I think a good solution would be webservices. Another option would be introducing more XML files. Either solution will essentially reduce the coupling and improve performance.
On this subject our neighbor Landgrab seems to do a pretty good job, they have specified a nice list of well documented webservices. Maybe we ought to follow their lead?