Who has great API documentation?

Question

I'm looking for examples of companies who do great API documentation. Flickr's looks really nice. Any recommendations?

What's apparent to me is that there are differing definitions of what "great API documentation" actually is. I'm looking for examples that combine nice design/usability with extensive and accurate documentation.

So far, Flickr and Last.fm encompass these aspects the most. I can open them up and know right away what and discern the information I'm looking for.

Answer 1

jQuery has great documentation.

Consensus has it that last.fm has good documentation as well.

Answer 2

Yeah, flickr is well documented. last.fm is in the same vein.

Answer 3

MSDN Library for the .NET Framework is probably the best API documentation I'm aware of.

The thing I like is that you can find, for almost every method overload, a complete code sample that shows how to use the API. That's even true for not-so-used methods, like ILGenerator.Emit, for example. You get signatures and code samples in different .NET languages (C++ CLI, VB.NET, C# ; sometimes F#), plus valuable remarks.

Note that the .NET MSDN library also contains lots of pages about concepts, guidelines, how-to's, etc.

For example, here you can find a whole set of links that explain what is the reflection, and how to use this framework part at a higher level. It explains ideas and concepts over the simple API usage : runtime types, how to handle generic types, security, metadata, etc.

Only few projects, frameworks and tools that I know of, have such a detailed documentation.

Answer 4

I must admit that MSDN is not so bad.

Answer 5

Qt's documentation is my favourite.

Answer 6

Java's documentation is also top-notch.

Answer 7

Django's is pretty impressive.

Gives a nice "Get started now" tutorial, which is a must, but also has very approachable documentation for when you need more info.

Answer 8

Google Maps isn't too bad.

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/index.html