I've always thought union organizing was ripe for some good ol' tech innovation. It seems to be run in such an old school way, right now.
Very cool idea, and seems very flushed out already! Best of luck, and I will let all my friends who complain about unfair working conditions know about this!
Thanks! But I want to emphasize that Organize isn't meant to replace old school organizing. Rather it's meant to expand those proven techniques to a larger audience that can't be served by the limited number of existing organizers (i.e. workplaces too small to attract a professional organizer).
Plus, it's helpful to remember that organizing isn't only for workplaces trying to improve poor conditions. It's also for workplaces with good conditions that want an assurance that the company can't unilaterally take them away! This is something many if us in tech jobs forget until things like layoffs or forced return-to-office give us a reminder.
I recently joined this team from Azure. Lots of senior AWS and Joyent folks here as well. Send me a mail at joe dot levy at oracle dot com and I can connect you with the right folks. Same goes for anyone else interested!
Yes, using the generated API is the issue, not generating one.
As for authenticated sites, as long as the underlying generated module keeps track of cookies received in responses and sends those cookies on subsequent API calls, just like a browser would, it should work fine for "normal" websites that use regular cookies for remembering if user is logged in. Gargl modules generated as PowerShell, or as Javascript (and used in a WinJS project) do this "cookie remembering" today. It could also of course be possible for the user to remember the cookie themselves in their code (after it gets the raw response from the API call), and then pass that cookie into any subsequent API calls manually.
Very cool, but why come up with a new API schema rather than use an open standard like OData (http://www.odata.org/)? Then Alpaca would be compatible with a bunch of APIs that already exist today. In fact, something like this (generating client libraries from APIs) may exist for OData already, but if it does, I've only seen it for .NET and OData (Visual Studio 'Add Service Reference').
This is actually pretty similar to a side project I've been working on called Gargl (Generic API Recorder and Generator Lite) (https://github.com/jodoglevy/gargl). Haven't gotten around to doing a Show HN post yet, but would love any feedback or to combine efforts. Basically it lets you generate an API for websites that don't have APIs publically available, by looking at how a web page / form submission of that web site interacts with the web server. You record web requests you make while normally browsing a website via a chrome extension, parameterize them as needed, and then output your "API" to a template file. Then this template file can be converted to a client library in a programming language of your choosing.
Yes, I will probably open source it soon. But couldn't one just open source the code, say that's the code the app is using, and then change the code the app is using to do something malicious? As long as I don't check in the new code, no one would be the wiser.
Not that I'm planning to do that, but is there a solution to this issue?
You could build my source and deploy to your system yourself and it would work, but this doesn't seem like a very "for the masses" solution. Plenty of people out there who want the security of using open source code that others have reviewed, but don't know anything about development to be able to build that code themselves.
OP Update:
They issued a take down request to Microsoft, which required they fill out a form on specific infringement of the app. I'm actually glad they did this, as Microsoft has a formal process for reinstatement of Windows 8 apps that previously may have infringed, and this way I have a list of things they want changed without having to officially be on the record communicating with them directly (where they could use anything I write against me).
Complaints:
They have copied the POF icon and used it as their own.
This application is passing off that it is an Application from Plentyoffish Media. They use our trademark in their description. Also, the word "Many" in title is clearly a play off of "Plenty Of." We have many other trademarks in many other jurisdictions for this and related trademarks.
Very cool idea, and seems very flushed out already! Best of luck, and I will let all my friends who complain about unfair working conditions know about this!