Hi Cam et al. :

Thanks for the feedback!

>It's a good suggestion.  I teach web apis in Python as part of introductory CS 
>courses that I instruct at my University.  I'd be
>happy to contribute.

Cool!

>I think one key would be to get a sense of the one or two web apis that 
>librarians would find most useful, or at least understand 
>the utility of.

My first impression was a Software Carpentry lesson would be geared towards a 
specific field. However from looking at lessons, perhaps
a Software Carpentry lesson should focus on the tools and library independent 
of a specific field. So Web API basic, just enough Python,
requests, JSON, and curl. 
 
As for librarians. I not a librarian (but I have worked on an OPAC). However I 
suspect the most relevant API for librarians would be the Worldcat API.
As for myself, the Wolfram Alpha API is becoming relevant because I plan to use 
it  to help correct entries in a downloadable patron loan history.
I'll use this upcoming experience to see if it would be a suitable exercise.

Cheers,
Andrew


________________________________________
From: Cam Macdonell <[email protected]> on behalf of Cam Macdonell 
<[email protected]>
Sent: 24 November 2015 17:27
To: Andrew Francis
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Discuss] Suggestion for Software Carpentry Lesson: WebAPIs with 
Python, Requests and cURL

Hi Andrew,

It's a good suggestion.  I teach web apis in Python as part of
introductory CS courses that I instruct at my University.  I'd be
happy to contribute.

I think one key would be to get a sense of the one or two web apis that
librarians would find most useful, or at least understand the utility
of.

Also, we could check what the Library Carpenters at the British Library
have done towards this.

Cam

Quoting Andrew Francis <[email protected]>:
> Hi:
>
> I am new to Software Carpentry. I  attended the "R" workshop during Pycon 
> 2014. Some friends attended "The
>
> Software Carpentry for Librarians" bootcamp. I looked at the covered lessons 
> and I noticed there was not anything about
>
> accessing web services. Especially in the case of librarians, I was a bit 
> surprised by the lack of a lesson on web based APIs because
>
> folks like the OCLC offer stuff like WorldCat API.
>
>
> If it does not exist, I would like to suggest a Software Carpentry Lesson on 
> WebAPIs. Some of the topics mentioned could be
>
> why web APIs, HTTP and ReST, the cURL utility and Python with the requests 
> library, JSON. XML and beautiful soap would be nice
>
> too.
>
>
> I am not a Software Carpentry instructor. However I have given Pycon talks 
> and I think I could prototype a lesson. Not sure how
>
> I would go about that though.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Andrew

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