Cross Platform Craziness

Well, this past week I spent time fighting with Facebook (yet again).  The issue was that you have to register your app with FB in order to obtain an app ID used to authenticate that the app trying to connect to FB servers has permission to do so.

This is not unheard of and is even standard in most distributed type of applications.  The first problem was that you need to be a registered FB developer before you can obtain this ID.  This wasn't a big deal; just the standard "create a new account" stuff you would expect.  It was in "verifying" the account that an issue first manifested.  FB has two options for verification; a verification code can be sent via text message to your cell phone, or you can give FB your credit card information (assuming you have one and assuming you want FB to have this information)
I chose option 1 because I'd rather not give FB my credit card information.  Option 1 never worked for me. the verification number that was sent to my phone was eight digits long and the text box on FB's verification page only allowed six.  I kept getting a "verification number incorrect or invalid" error which then strongly urged me to give up my credit card info instead (I started sensing a pattern here).

Another member of our team had mentioned that he was pretty sure he was already a FB registered developer so he is going to try and register our app under his account.

Issue two stems from the fact that when FB changes their API for connecting to FB servers, the group responsible for the Corona SDK must also change the way the SDK implements FB connections.  As any experienced developer knows, this takes time and resources.  It seems to me that since Corona SDK is still young, its resources are still limited.  Case in point - FB has changed the way iOS 6 devices connect because iOS 6 now has FB connection integrated right into the OS.  Corona SDK has not made the update yet, or at least hasn't documented it yet.

The process to connect via Android is a little different from iOS but doesn't "seem" to have changed all that much in the past few years.  In the interest of time, I may end up just implementing the Android FB connection and leaving the iOS piece for later.

-Eric