Gdata and Google Docs API deprecation about gdata-python-client

[jantman]

Over a year with no response.

Google folks ( @aliafshar @alainv @dhermes @jcgregorio ) can we PLEASE get some information about the status of this project - the official Google API client for one of your most visible apps, in a long-time-Google-loved language? The fact that this issue and #22 have been open for so long with no response is really disconcerting, especially for the many people who have built apps based on this...

[wescpy]

This is already old news, but for everyone finding this bug (which s/b closed): most GData APIs were deprecated back in Apr 2012, and most everyone has moved to google-api-python-client. Secondly "Google Docs" as a collective product name is also no more (it now just refers to the word processor app), changing to "Google Apps" then "G Suite", and as of today, is now "Google Workspace". With the Google APIs client library, you can access the current RESTful APIs for Gmail, Google Drive, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and more... see https://developers.google.com/workspace.

[dhermes]

@jantman I haven't worked on this library since approximately 2012, but even then these APIs were nearing deprecation. This library can only be described as being in maintenance mode, since Google services have long moved on past the GData format / backend.

If you are worried about services being deprecated, this isn't the place to go. You should find help pages / forums / etc. for that particular product and reach out directly. This library is a layer on top of those services and it's an almost certainty that no one has any inside knowledge of how / when those services will be turned down.

[jantman]

@dhermes sorry for bringing you into this then.

I'm not worried about the services being deprecated, per se. What I'm worried about is the number of people - myself included - who google something like "google spreadsheet python" (or whatever service) and find this library at the top of the results, and build a new application based on it... because there's nothing in the README or other documentation that says "The APIs this library uses are deprecated, you should use something else instead."

For me personally, I've built a pretty complex application on top of gdata for spreadsheets... and luckily, I wrapped all of the calls to the library in helper methods, so switching it over to google-api-python-client is painful but not horrendous.

I think the gist of what I feel, and what the OP feels, is that Google should at least care enough to update the documentation with a note about some of the APIs being deprecated, and a pointer to google-api-python-client as (from what I can tell) having superseded this package. Until then, unfortunate people (like me - I only started my codebase using this package in 2015) will continue finding this and building new code on it, only to discover that they should likely have been using something else.

The gist is:

This library can only be described as being in maintenance mode, since Google services have long moved on past the GData format / backend.

Then Google should be nice enough to say so in a conspicuous place that users of this package will notice, especially if they're just finding it for the first time.

[Galithil]

@jantman I'd trust google on making sure that google rankings don't put this too high ;)

I've moved to the spreadsheet API, for my use cases.