If you’re evaluating a company for how well-documented their product is, the best bet is to look at their API documentation. It should look like this: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/core/v3/reference or like this, https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api.
However, I just happened upon a nicer and more understandable format at:
http://weblog.bocoup.com/documenting-your-api/
Notice the general openness of the documentation. It’s as if the people on the other side actually want you to adopt their API and add copious notes and don’t saddle you with a goofy interface.
Anyone willing to post a nonprofit CRM API that looks at least as good as Google’s or Twitter’s? Feel free to go nuts in the comment section.
I have the feeling we’re not going to see something like that from Blackbaud.
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We are currently in the process of documenting our REST based API at StratusLIVE. We have already built some integrations on top of the product leveraging these APIs and are looking to really start pushing these out to developers over the coming months. You can follow along on our progress on GitHub as we document: https://github.com/StratusLIVE/Public-Api/wiki.
I wrote it, so I'm not going to claim it's as good as Google or Twitter(!), but I spend a lot of my time reading API docs so I've tried to put some effort into making them helpful.
The feedback we have had makes me realise how important cut-and-pasteable working examples are.
Anyway, our API docs are at http://www.lamplight-publishing.co.uk/api/core.ph…
Always interested in feedback…