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ChimeraCoder / lobbyistsfromlastnight

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Sunlight API changes have broken the website #7

Open ChimeraCoder opened 11 years ago

ChimeraCoder commented 11 years ago

I noticed last week that the website seemed to be unreachable, though didn't have time to pinpoint the root of the issue. On Monday (the 4th), I received an email from the Sunlight foundation noting that the Sunlight API was being deprecated.

This necessitates two changes for us:

  1. We should modify the website to be compatible with the new API by following the Sunlight migration guide.
  2. We should ensure that the site returns a response (at the very least a 500, but preferably an informative error page) if the external API calls fail.

Full text of Sunlight's email:

Hello,

You're receiving this because you are or were an active user of Sunlight Labs' Congress API. We've just released a new Congress API that deprecates both our old Congress API and our Real Time Congress API, and is a near-complete replacement for both of them.

This does mean we will eventually shut off both our old Congress API, and the Real Time Congress API. However, we will continue to support and operate them for almost two more years, until at least January 3, 2015 (the end of the 113th Congress).

Read the new Congress API documentation for more details: http://sunlightlabs.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d5304df77590e80121f8e02ec&id=65afa4e7b6&e=bf1f36674f

To make the transition as easy possible, we've prepared a migration guide specifically for users of our old Congress API: http://sunlightlabs.us5.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=d5304df77590e80121f8e02ec&id=6bcdb3ba9f&e=bf1f36674f

If you use one of our Ruby or Python libraries to access our API, we'll soon be releasing an update to each of them that will make the migration even easier.

We don't plan on sending out any more direct emails like this until much closer to the shut-off date in 2015. In the meantime, we'll post any further announcements to our API mailing list: http://sunlightlabs.us5.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=d5304df77590e80121f8e02ec&id=3468691064&e=bf1f36674f

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to post publicly to the list above, or you can write us directly at api@sunlightfoundation.com.

Our mailing address is: Sunlight Foundation 1818 N St NW Suite 300 Washington, DC 20036

ChimeraCoder commented 11 years ago

With commit b1f1d7698cd87d3aacb1635618f5517a51afcc03, the actual errors that were breaking the main page of the website were fixed (which actually had nothing to do with the Sunlight API changes; the timing was coincidental).

However, this is still something we should plan on fixing in advance of the API deprecation.