But I'm disinclined to attribute malevolence to people without a motive. So I'm inclined to think they had to implement an API for some contractual reason; they put their best architect on it, with a brief to minimise server load at all costs; he then handed it off to the most junior developer team.
BTW: API implementors don't generally design their API around the unit-testing requirements of the API's users. Please don't test the API I wrote; I've already tested it. Test your own code.
But I'm disinclined to attribute malevolence to people without a motive. So I'm inclined to think they had to implement an API for some contractual reason; they put their best architect on it, with a brief to minimise server load at all costs; he then handed it off to the most junior developer team.
BTW: API implementors don't generally design their API around the unit-testing requirements of the API's users. Please don't test the API I wrote; I've already tested it. Test your own code.