In what way have they “taken a back seat?” Taken a back seat to what?

Taken a back seat to browser development.

And in what way does this manifest? They lack features that the web UI has? Why are you bringing it up here instead of filing tickets with mobile apps?

It seems silly to say they’ve “taken a back seat” when they’re entirely different pieces of software written by different individuals. It’s like saying that Chrome development is taking a back seat to DuckDuckGo. They’re different things entirely.

I don’t believe those client apps are built by the same folks as Lemmy…

They aren’t except for ‘jerboa’.

It’s a side project by a Lemmy developer, not an official part of Lemmy.

…therefore whether they “function properly” is purely a concern for their developers and users.

It’s a concern because most users connect to the Internet through mobile apps.

Lemmy is non-commercial and as such “the market” doesn’t work in the same way as an integrated product like Instagram, Twitter, etc.

I’m not addressing the differing world market systems. I’m addressing how most people connect to the Internet.

You seem to have confused and incorrect ideas about how the internet works.

It’s my, general, understanding that most people connect to the Internet through mobile apps.

Certainly, a lot of people use mobile apps.

If this is the case, then why have apps such as Remmel, Lemmur and jerboa taken a back seat?

In what way have they “taken a back seat?” Taken a back seat to what?

They seem to be there for anyone who wants to use them, and look like they’re actively maintained.

IMHO, it would be a mistake to market Lemmy without these mobile apps functioning properly.

I don’t believe those client apps are built by the same folks as Lemmy, therefore whether they “function properly” is purely a concern for their developers and users.

Lemmy is non-commercial and as such “the market” doesn’t work in the same way as an integrated product like Instagram, Twitter, etc.

Funny, I was just the other day appreciating that Lemmy didn’t try to open in a new tab.

Well, I can see that this isn’t going to be a productive conversation, so I’m out.

I’ll just leave you with this: you have two people here who agree that docs need significant work, and I gave a detailed list of specific things that need addressing. Ignoring half the issues to say, essentially, “you’re wrong, just click around” is not helpful.

Several ways:

• They don’t simply describe the API. The description of the API is embedded in a particular (JavaScript) implementation of the API client.
• There are almost no textual descriptions of anything, and the ones that do exist are useless, because all they do is repeat the name of the function. For example, the full documentation for deleteCommunity() is “Delete a community.” In what circumstances may I delete a community? What authentication needs to be performed before this function is called? What response should I expect if the deletion failed?
• The actual payload structs all have almost no documentation. What’s the difference between DeleteCommunity and RemoveCommunity? Okay, so only an admin can remove a community, but like… what do these things actually do?
• There’s no place to see everything about an endpoint: its URL, request/response types, etc. It’s strewn all over the place, making it harder to find. likePost tells you part of the URL, and the method. You have to click through to CreatePostLike to see the shape of the request body, and PostResponse (and then PostView) to see the expected response… but only on success. For errors, I have no idea. I got down into wrapper(), but it looks like it simply may not implement error handling at all. Figuring out the URL is another slog, this time through buildFullUrl() and the constructor.

In short: The API isn’t really documented, and building a new API client requires reverse engineering the JavaScript one.

Before we used to manually maintain other API docs, and it was a huge hassle to keep them updated.

Certainly, writing documentation is work. But the decision to stop doing it externalizes and multiplies the hassle – it shifts from the Lemmy developers needing to maintain documentation once, to any programmer wishing to interact with Lemmy needing to RE the JS client, every time.

Autogenerating Swagger documentation may be one way to reduce the burden on the Lemmy maintainers.