Sandbox questions

[Fred Bishop]

API documentation says

"As of June 14, 2011 the sandbox will not have any data copied from production. On this date it will start with essentially empty data"
"API sandbox developers will populate it with test data making sandbox API calls."


then

"Search results via the sandbox API come from the production search engine."
"The best way to test search during initial development is to use your restricted read-only API key to call search methods in the production API.

I don't understand what I'm getting in the sandbox - live searches but test data?
Test data everyone else has access to?

What I ideally need within the sandbox is a dataset which looks like normal production data
Oauth access (I think I get that within the sandbox)

It'd be hard work to have to populate the sandbox.  I'm not an etsy user - currently trying to develop.  This says I can get access to production data
(non updating ie. without Oauth) without the sandbox?

What I really need is rich dataset of a typical user (database fully populated), within the sandbox - with update capability (and maybe even facility to
re-populate the sandbox).

Just not sure what's in there before I even begin; which users and what access within or without the sandbox developers get.

Thanks

[Chipit Prom]

It'd be AMAZING to be able to press a button and have our sandbox shop populate with random data & images. Or are the images still borked in the sandbox?

-Also-

Don't forget to enter in the Daily Like Bomb. Your shop could receive 100 likes per day! To Enter, go to your shop -> "Settings" -> "Promotions" -> "The Daily Like Bomb"

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[Fred Bishop]

So far what I see from etsy developer info is

provision of dictionary without data -- which means the mass of information is getting in the way ++

dictionaries (record formats) are meaningless without data examples, to first of all minimise the
data you need to look at

you need not only the provision of examples but also 'scenarios' (transaction examples)

1. basic transactions - examples - skeletal dataset

2. intemediary examples
through to

3. rich transactions using all system functionality - bringing all the data in - rich data set

so far I have managed to get through to the system using php

CLI functionality examples addressing the sandbox example dataset would be good
seems that everything is JSON which is good - records could be demonstrable in CLI (command line)
through JSON

my problem and a lot of other peoples problem will be that without being able to play around
with data - either they have a GUI which isn't going anywhere or they need a GUI.  It's a lot easier
to address GUI after understanding, having complete control over, the data

GUI without knowing that will obfuscate

its all about the data - you must be able to easily manipulate the data before you even think
of anything - and having a robust CLI would be good for production anyway - good for quick fixes
and even server side batch data processing

developing from server side intially / developing from plain data foundation = strength

have seen that anything works in relation to etsy will only be in php
nothing maintained in python -- from python background

dragging php around is like dragging around dinosaur (apache etc)
it's ok, robust but not that nice

would be fantastic if someone did all that with python, addressing the data
and even better if someone demonstrated it working with lighttpd/fastcgi

[Fred Bishop]

right now I just want to get all orders

retrieve the orders that have been made

I can't do that in the sandbox because there's no key in
it's "findAllUserOrders" (so I need a User Id) - I need to create
a user - I'm not even an etsy user

so I am figuring now I have to construct a dataset using data
which is not real, which I have to guess what it is (not real system data)
and also write programs to get the data onto the etsy server (when I don't
need programs to get the data onto the etsy server right now)

then retrieve the data which I then can't even be sure is correct

then, using that data hopefully prove to the etsy people that my app
is going to be valid with real data (when it's been developed blindly)

could do with a real data set as I said
I'm looking at a sandbox without any sand, bucket and space or even
a simple example castle

when I say "real" data - I understand the issues.  What you do is you get
production records of some stock which is just "demo" .. you get test user ids
test customers, test prices test values

I'm going to leave off development now until I get some way in

[Fred Bishop]

or maybe I can get a way into the data by issuing 'findAllUsers"
or "getAllUserCarts"

maybe there'll be some data in the sandbox

[Fred Bishop]

installing "getsy" seems to be perl CLI to etsy written by etsy person

but ... 1 install hads already failed - 2nd is taking like > 15 minutes?
im not sure if its just looping in the install

im running on a celeron laptop here and it's caning it (little fan going hell for leather)
... how big is it? seems to be installing a lot of "moose"

never seen perl

[Fred Bishop]

2nd try to install "getsy" (ubuntu) froze after > 15 minutes

never seen stuff lock up like that
never seen stuff that takes > 15 minutes to install

here -> locked at

http://oi49.tinypic.com/27yv6eo.jpg

who hang on - must have done ctrl - x (really I don't think so) in the terminal -- its decided to start up again

[Fred Bishop]

looks like I failed:

"# Looks like you failed 1 test of 1.
Bailout called.  Further testing stopped: 
FAILED--Further testing stopped.
make: *** [test_dynamic] Error 1
  JGOULAH/WWW-Getsy-0.999005.tar.gz
  /usr/bin/make test -- NOT OK
//hint// to see the cpan-testers results for installing this module, try:
  reports JGOULAH/WWW-Getsy-0.999005.tar.gz
Warning (usually harmless): 'YAML' not installed, will not store persistent state
Running make install
  make test had returned bad status, won't install without force
Could not read '/home/dan/.cpan/build/Devel-Declare-0.006011-ORsMXK/META.yml'. Falling back to other methods to determine prerequisites
Could not read '/home/dan/.cpan/build/Path-Class-0.29-PYneFg/META.yml'. Falling back to other methods to determine prerequisites"

[Fred Bishop]

installing centos on virtualbox - person who wrote "getsy" uses centos
centos 6.3
tried it once before - reckon should boot

[Jake Chapa]

The Etsy sandbox is ridiculous. I feel your pain.

> --
>
>

[Fred Bishop]

still on it - tried complete install of centos 5.8 (to get this getsy
to build).
no way - centos 5.8 has no internet connectivity straight out of the
box
you have to source drivers, configure your internet
so - have now started a netinstall of centos 5.8 within virtualbox -
that'll give me internet connectivity on centos

then I can see if getsy builds, and this time i'll make a log of the
compilation
stage so I can maybe fix it

have also started a twitter channel "etsy_developer"

https://twitter.com/Etsy_developer

have just seen that my stuff doesn't work because I have the wrong
version of perl
(reply from john goulah (getsy developer))

should now get getsy to work
getsy seems to do exactly what I described earlier on this thread as
being necessary

[Fred Bishop]

have confirmed that the instructions to install getsy contained in

http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2011/01/10/introducing-getsy-a-secure-command-line-interface-to-the-etsy-api/

are wrong. they don't work on any version of linux
The setup of perl (to ensure the correct version of perl) - as
instructed, doesn't work.
It's problematic enough on ubuntu for instance because perl isn't
intrinsic to ubuntu
(in its package lists)

I haven't managed to do it using anybody elses instructions.
There is an ubuntu bug filed that perlbrew switching of perl version
doesn't work at all

illustrated how I followed the instructions on tweet:

https://twitter.com/Etsy_developer

to the getsy developer john goulah

this has never worked - anyone who has managed to install that must
be experienced in perl IMO.

[Chris Dary]

Hi folks,

So the two separate threads here: 

1. Regarding the sandbox: We're very aware it's not ideal, and we're not happy with it and are looking to improve this process. More on this very soon. Speaking specifically, data -does- get copied over from your initial sign up on the sandbox, but after then it is no longer synchronized. That's unclear in the docs right now. Apologies for that.

2. Just to clarify, Getsy is an unofficial library and not supported by Etsy proper. John kindly released it but it's not something we support internally - and like many open source projects, this was built in John's free time, and I'm sure he had no intention of maintaining it for many years on his own. If you see things you'd like to improve, I'm sure he'd welcome a fork or a patch!

-Chris

[Fred Bishop]

Based on what I see there is, it should take one of your engineers at
the very most a day (it should take somebody who knows the system an
afternoon) to document properly the sandbox facility, how to get in.
How to get data from it in PHP at least. Is there going to be decent
data when I get to it? My client has already told me to walk way from
this when I informed him that there is < 15% of the obvious
documentation there should be. I have already spent two days solid
trying to get into this data, when if I'd had documentation it would
have taken at the most an afternoon. I'm not looking forward to
spending another day on it, flailing around - looking for information
that should just be available.

Getsy seems to be a necessary tool, that could make a difference but
even with Getsy there are still issues in understanding how to make a
sandbox setup. There should be one with PHP, at least how I explained
in this thread, with simple to complex examples. Can somebody do that
next week or do I have to do it for you. I need this out of the way.
Shouldn't have to be spending a week deciphering an interface that
nobody has bothered to document properly. Do you want me to do that?
Do you want me to have to spend an entire week analysing your system
to find out what to do, then I post the information online for you, so
that people can actually use it.

The phrase "happorth of tar" comes to mind when addressing your
sandbox interface "facility" and Getsy. You've written the stuff but
have "spolied the ship for a ha'porth of tar" (working instructions,
installation or otherwise - or documentation). Means that somebody
built a ship but it went down because they didn't spend half pence on
tar to finish it.

[Chris Dary]

Hi Fred,

(Just a side point - you should know that every post you make gets emailed, so your edits got sent around to the list 7 times even though they got deleted. Probably better to edit offline first!)

I hear your frustrations on the sandbox. We're not happy with it either. That said, I feel the sandbox is fairly well documented, it's just poor in execution. There are some clear documentation holes, like you mentioned above, which we'll fix as it's short and helpful. We're on a holiday schedule right now, though, and don't intend to be pushing non-critical things until after the new year.

As far as documenting in any further depth, though, I'm both not sure it'd be helpful and not sure it'd be a great use of time as there are changes coming to the sandbox in a month or two which will likely obviate much of it.

It's true: We don't have officially supported API libraries. We currently expect our developers to speak HTTP. We welcome third party libraries. If you'd like to open source a PHP library, we'd be happy to add it to the developer resources page: http://www.etsy.com/developers/documentation/resources/developer_resources

Hope this helps,

-Chris

[AcousticWebDesign - Mitch Hall]

I feel your pain.  I think every developer connecting to Etsy has to learn the hard way that the sandbox is a joke.  I spent about a week trying to create a single order and receipt.  The createReceiptOnSandbox just doesn't work.  I tried many times and eventually my sandbox account stopped working all together.  I just get 500 Server Response - posted on here about that and sent email but no response.  By then, I gave up and since then I've been developing against production which is just ludicrous.  Luckily, I also sell on Etsy and have real data to work with but that's just a coincidence. 

This makes me wonder how much testing Etsy does before deploying there own changes.  I mean they have to be testing against something and there's no way they're using the sandbox.  So what are Etsy developer's testing with and why can't we use the same?