Its very difficult if not impossible to make a client which behaves correctly for all services. A simple example to demonstrate my point: the Facebook FQL API limits the maximum size of a result-set at any point in time to 5000. Therefore, you have to work around that limitation in a very specific way that no generic client can handle properly. That is partly why the advice given in the OP is so good: because different services can and do handle each of those points in a different way.
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Its very difficult if not impossible to make a client which behaves correctly for all services. A simple example to demonstrate my point: the Facebook FQL API limits the maximum size of a result-set at any point in time to 5000. Therefore, you have to work around that limitation in a very specific way that no generic client can handle properly. That is partly why the advice given in the OP is so good: because different services can and do handle each of those points in a different way.