The Microsoft way

Facebook has a HTTP REST API exposed to the outside world. It is used by thousands of developers in different languages. Google API for most (if not all) of its services is also based on HTTP REST. This seems to be working for almost any “web 2.0″ application out there. Now bring Microsoft into the complex: Facebook SDK by Microsoft. I’m trying to get the news feed from a multi-threaded application using this SDK and here is what I get: System.Threading.ThreadStateException: ActiveX control ‘8856f961-340a-11d0-a96b-00c04fd705a2′ cannot be instantiated because the current thread is not in a single-threaded apartment.

And for now I’m getting this in my unit tests (which are running under ReSharper), I am going to have so much “fun” doing it in the real app.

I just want to ask WHY? Why is there an ActiveX anywhere in this SDK? Forget about the old and redundant technology. Couldn’t MS guys put a simple SDK together like ANY other REST based SDK out there that just works based on a bundle of wrappers around HTTP REST calls?

Why does Microsoft want to do everything their way and ignore every single standard under the sun?