In a post to Ruby-Talk, Ian Macdonald speaks about a new SOAP API for Google. (SOAP is an XML protocol that allows programmers to automatically query systems thru a friendly interface.) This is surprising, considering that Google has shut down their XML interface.
Noticing that the API call requires a special "key" parameter (currently 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx') it seems likely that this interface will be closed off to everyone except special Google partners also. Quite a shame, although clever developers have learned to get the same results by simply parsing Google's XML format.
Slashdot: Google to Offer API
Posted by Aaron Swartz on April 07, 2002 01:25 AM