Google Suck!

No point to this thread, just venting. I’ve spent the last three hours hacking through the Google GData api trying to do something cool with our Google Calendar for the new site. It’s utter rubbish, whoever wrote their XML schema must have been on acid that day, it’s just useless garbage. Have they not heard of simple, self-descriptive semantics? Jesus. SAVE ME ROBBY!

quite… they are really nice guys though… and I believe a member of this forum has just gone to work for google! Specifically to work with companies intergrating their technology with googles…

m

Jay,

I hear your pain, speaking of Google Canlendar (not that you .Net guys will be interested) check this out http://spanningsync.com/ - sync your iCalendar with your Google Calendar (yep, both ways)

Also, can you use Xpath in .NET ?

Trying to parse the Google Calendar stuff as sensible DOM won’t get you very far, but if you’re familiar enough with PHP or Ruby to drag some sense out of those… there’s 3rd party Classes (Objects, whatever ) for each specifically for making GoogleCalendar play nice.

Here’s one… http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/3548.html - I have a login to that site I think, so I can save you the task of registering and mail you the class files if it’s likely to be any help.

– Lee

Matt, I wouldn’t pee on them if they were on fire. I don’t care how big their data-center or IPO is They can’t write API’s for toffee!

.net is the daddy when it comes to handling XML Hambley, but you can’t work miracles with the crap Google supply you. I’ve even plugged in the Google .net libraries to try to make sense of the entries, but it’s still garbage. Very bad job on Googles part, I’m surprised considering their reputation.

It’s the whole event date handling that sucks chronically. Sigh. I may be forced to compromise and cut back on functionality. I can’t justify spending another evening on this.

Jay,

I must confess, I haven’t been near a Microsoft language since College, I would gladly have thrown myself in front of a Bus (or gone riding in the snow :-D) instead of coding my project in .Net!

I have to say, some of the constructs and objects are nice… but being raised on Unix, Open Source and all things in that category I guess I was biased (learned to program PHP, Python and Java before hitting college) -

I’ve never had to put anything into a Google Calendar with the API, but if I recall pulling info out in PHP - it was an unholy XPath hack, basically tacking things into the model to make it make sense, and then an class which loaded the whole XML result into an instance of a “Calendar” type object

I do agree that Google API’s are whack though, especially the AdWords one and… don’t get me started on the heresy that is GoogleTalk’s non-standard addition to the XMPP protocol grrrr

What are you trying to do with the API Jay (if you can say without giving too much away) maybe lay-mans or, at least fresh eyes could see another way to do what you’re doing ?

hmmmmmm - shouldn’t this be in bovvered??

FFS don’t make the new site ‘blingy’ and over complicated. KISS!

Here, have this anyway http://www.hambley.name/googlecalendarwrap-2006-11-25.tar.gz

Nothing too complicated, just listings for upcoming events in a simple format. I’m having problems with their query object now, there’s no easy way to query for results and order them by start-time. I need to find a Google-Geek and interrogate him It’s a shame as the Google apps are fab and there’s huge scope for integration, but the API’s… leave a lot to be desired.

Jimc, don’t worry, it’s only useful stuff.

I am so bored… I am sleeping…

lol,

Well, I think we exhausted my knowledge of .NET somewhere after I learned to spell it - Sorry I can’t be more help - do you not spend/earn enough on adworse/adsense to qualify for a helper dude ?

(not really my business, but it might be worth asking them if you think it’s a possibility) - one of my clients spends about £800 a day on adwords - google gave us a pretty much full-time hand at their place to keep on top of it

cant you just use something other then google - Yahoo - MSN etc, etc???

I’m not aware of any other comparable calendar services. I’ll check Yahoo though, they might. Thanks for the tip.

I’d of thought they both would - as you can sync everything else with them - but MSN tend to charge for the stuff yahoo do for free - thats why i have yahoo synced to my outlook - and just use MSN/Hotmail for net passport!

Computer says “NO”!!!