Facebook® Application Development For Dummies®

Preparing for API Changes

It's inevitable. You build “the next big thing” and launch it with much fanfare, only to find out that Facebook is deprecating the very feature that your new app is based on.

I've had this happen time and time again. In fact, the last book I wrote is completely (well, mostly) deprecated as I write this. These things happen, and you have to be prepared. This is one reason why you see phrases like “at the time of this writing,” “as I write this,” or “refer to the Developer documentation” so frequently in this book. The fact is that Facebook's API is a living, breathing interface that will very likely change significantly at some point over the lifetime of your application or Web site.

You have to embrace change to get along with Facebook's API. This isn't hard to do — almost always it changes for the better.

Building an idea that withstands change

The first thing you need to do as you're preparing for such a volatile API is to prepare an idea that can withstand change. Building an idea around something that only Facebook provides isn't always the best approach, because if Facebook were to ever remove that functionality (which often happens), your entire product will be irrelevant. Your idea should be one that stands, regardless of change.

I like to use the example of a LEGO set when I explain how businesses building on “the building block Web” should consider their ideas. If you think about it, each LEGO set, as a whole, is an entirely different product ...