This is a computing forum, ain't nobody got the time to explain what API means.
You should not go on medical forums asking in any post what SVT tachycardia means either. It's just rude, and trollish, since you have been here for 10 years and you're wasting everybody's time with fake questions.
I didn't ask was "API" meant. Instead, I asked what was the specific API they were referring to. There are thousands of APIs
and the authors assumed what API they had in mind was clear. Clear enough???
For your
> It's just rude, and trollish, since you have been here for 10 years and you're wasting everybody's time with fake questions.
Wrong. All wrong. 100% wrong. I did no such thing. What I did is 100% fully appropriate, reasonable, justified, and constructive.
Just read again, setting your hostility aside, what I actually WROTE.
E.g., I wrote
"API"
to question the meaning of the quote I gave
"the API".
Okay, as is fully clear from what else I wrote, I was asking WHAT !@#$%^&() API? Not your misreading -- I was NOT asking what an API is but what API the author had in mind. You blew it. You get an F for simple reading comprehension.
More generally, sorry to break the news, but computing and Hacker News have a strong desire to be as obscure as possible. It appears that most of what competence* the audience has is simple explanations of obscure jargon about trivial concepts and then omit the explanations and leave the jargon.
My view is that poor technical writing, including undefined obscure jargon is by far the worst bottleneck to progress in computing and, thus, in the economy and civilization.
In a few words, JUNK THE OBSCURE JARGON. Clear enough? This is a controversial suggestion?
Usually when I see obscure jargon, I don't bother to guess or look up what it means and, instead, conclude that the content is from such a bad writer that I should not attempt to read the content.
Writers, take note: A large fraction of the content on computing and at Hacker News I just won't attempt to read.
I know quite well what advanced material is in computing and math.
I'll put it to you this way: I know enough about academic computer science research to understand that a large fraction of accomplished, expert, famous, tenured, chaired professors of computer science at some of the best research research universities don't waste their time, effort, or energy on undefined, generally trivial content presented as obscure jargon either.
Undefined terminology -- bad stuff. Don't do that. Understand now?
I know; I know; these ideas are a bit too subtle for the diligent Hacker News audience well informed on obscure aspects of Twitter. Uh, I have next to nothing to do with Twitter. Apparently some of the Hacker News audience expects to become better informed about computing by paying attention to trivia about Twitter -- not good.
