The assumption that is made with all of the StackExchange family of sites is that some legwork can be done by the user (askers and answerers).  Many of the questions that are too broad tend to be ones that - with 5 minutes of googling - could be narrowed down enough that they can be answered concisely and constructively.

Such as with your question that you have linked.  Within roughly 2 minutes of Googling the clauses "API magnetic card reader", "API card reader", "Card reader programming", etc, I got thrown a menageri of articles that could be scanned through and read, hopefully narrowing the information enough in my mind to give a concise answer.

From what I know, the StackExchange websites aren't meant to take all of the legwork the questioner should be doing and offloading it to the answerers, that's why "Where should I start" questions get closed regularly.