Is there a way to discover what versions are available?

Question

http://api.stackoverflow.com/0.8/help works.
http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.0/help does not.

Is there something that returns 0.8 as the most recent version? And/or is there something that lists every version?

Answer 1

Currently there is only one version alive at a time (0.8). While in beta, I'm guessing this will be the norm.

Once out of beta, there will probably be an upgrade period for minor versions ("1.1 is released! Update your 1.0 apps!"). However, for major versions there will be two api's running at the same time (1.0 and 2.0).

From the original API announcement:

3. If you build to our API, we will support you. We will be ultra responsive to your feedback during this private beta. And once the API is released, we vow to support version 1.0 of the API for a long time — and if there is a version 2.0, it will be supported in parallel with 1.0 for as long as we can. We’re honored you would write code against our API and we plan to return the favor by not breaking your code a year down the line.

Answer 2

_{First of all, I completely agree with Joel Potter's answer. However, here, I want to respond to the feature-request part of your question.}

I think that the Team needs to implement a small feature here on StackApps that was present during the private beta.

I'm referring to a small banner at the top of each page here (the ones that are usually used on Trilogy sites before planned downtimes). This banner should tell us the current status of the API and what version of the API is the newest.

Of course, once we reach multiple API versions (as explained in Joel Potter's answer), we might have this still display the latest version but also link to a page with all versions.

Answer 3

Well /stats indicates (current) API version

{
  "statistics": [
    {
      "total_questions": 39206,
      "total_unanswered": 6161,
      "total_answers": 95349,
      "total_comments": 135925,
      "total_votes": 299689,
      "total_badges": 61312,
      "total_users": 37454,
      "questions_per_minute": 0.08,
      "answers_per_minute": 0.16,
      "badges_per_minute": 0.10,
      "api_version": {
        "version": "0.8",
        "revision": "1.0.1234.5678"
      }
    }
  ]
}