You might have noticed that the new version of Yummy has support for the pinboard.in bookmarking website for introverts, but that I’ve flagged the feature as “experimental.” why would I add a new feature and yet suggest that you might not want to use it? That’s what I hope to explain in this post.
Implementing support for pinboard.in was pretty easy. They use mostly the same API (way of talking to the server) as Delicious so it was just a matter of changing a few links and adding an option to the log in screen.
The devil, however, is in the word “mostly.” The Delicious.com API is, bizarrely, not great for syncing your bookmarks, especially on devices with limited memory like an iPhone. The pinboard.in guys agree, which is why they didn’t implement the few concessions that Delicious made to allow syncing.
What this means is that, technically, Yummy never syncs with pinboard.in, instead it downloads all your bookmarks every time. Also, it’s not possible to download bookmarks in “batches” which means that the more links you have the more likely it is to fail. (There is also a limit with Delicious but I’ve never heard of anyone reaching it.) Unfortunately it’s these “packrats,” with huge numbers of links, who are drawn to pinboard.in’s service.
Having said all that, I still thought that it was a feature worth adding. There is some demand and I don’t know what the limit is; hopefully it’s high enough to be useful.
So, what does “experimental” mean? In short it says that I have not fully decided what to do with it. If I get a disproportionate amount if support requests I may remove it. If successful I may create a separate app.
But if you do use it, please let me know how you get on.
