[twitter-dev] Rate limits, bad gateway, etc.

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

I have a Perl script that downloads historical tweets using the  
"user_timeline" REST API call. I'm running into 503 - "Bad Gateway" -  
"Twitter / Over capacity" errors when I run it. Questions:

1. When I run into an error, I'm waiting 45 seconds before retrying.  
Should I wait longer? Is there a shorter recommended wait time after  
an "Over capacity" error? Do I need to wait at all?

2. In normal operation, I'm using the returned rate limit header  
information to pace the request rate so that I never run out of calls.  
This can generate a call as soon as I've completed processing of the  
previous data. Should I insert a non-zero wait time here? I've tested  
explicit wait times as high as 20 seconds here and they don't seem to  
be reducing the incidence of "Over capacity" errors.