Update: Bluesky images work again and thus the Great Art on Bluesky channel is back. If you're on Bluesky please subscribe. #
The crazy thing about Bluesky's API is they took already standardized things like links and enclosures, and after 20+ years came up with new definitions. Makes our apps more expensive to maintain, and we waste time and human wear and tear on stupid bullshit make-work. Developers are people, and our work is already horribly overly complex, we're working at the edge of comprehension, and what the fukc let's throw some more unnecessary complication into the mix. Arrogance, narcissism, whatever the source is, it's not a good way to introduce yourself. And, even better, after you go through the maze they break it, with an error message about legacy blob bullshit. They've already done this, and they're just getting started. It's why I say they should just adapt to RSS instead of trying to force us to adapt to them. I'll do it one more time, and then that's it. They can fix my code next time they break it. #
BTW, in defense of Matt Mullenweg and the culture of the developer community he built over the last 20 years, for better or worse, they don't do what Bluesky did. They look for prior art and implement it and they don't deprecate. They're still running the APIs we invented for blogging before WordPress even existed. The philosophy is "Let's not argue about decisions made a long time ago, because we want interop." People have all kinds of harsh things to say about their leadership, but unless you're a developer you don't understand that the reason it works is that they have a different code for their code, the only way we get interop is by not re-inventing. There are two competing ways to do things in tech. The blogging world has been taken over by the re-inventors, like the Bluesky people. They make a nice product, but honestly they don't reallllly want us to work with them, or we wouldn't be having this friction. Their API is bullshit. Plain and simple. They even thought of using RSS constructs and decided to reinvent the whole thing. There are places to innovate, like new freedom for users and developers, or there are ways to create hamster cages where everyone gets to run around in a very tightly defined space, that's fun. That's what Twitter was about, and that's what Bluesky is doing too. At some point we're really going to break free of this mess, but this isn't that time, yet.#
You know those obnoxious sites that pop up dialogs when they think you're about to leave, asking you to subscribe to their email newsletter? Well that won't do for Scripting News readers who are a discerning lot, very loyal, but that wouldn't last long if I did rude stuff like that. So here I am at the bottom of the page quietly encouraging you to sign up for the nightly email. It's got everything from the previous day on Scripting, plus the contents of the linkblog and who knows what else we'll get in there. People really love it. I wish I had done it sooner. And every email has an unsub link so if you want to get out, you can, easily -- no questions asked, and no follow-ups. Go ahead and do it, you won't be sorry! :-)