I have more of a general information sort of question. Right now I work for Idealist.org, a nonprofit with an office here in Portland. Idealist, like many other websites, offers an API, thought we only offer an API for Perl and Java. I talked briefly with someone here who's in charge of the API, and he said it's possible for someone to write an API for ruby, since they have an SDK which is platform independent. (At this point I'm starting to talk about things I know little about, and I think it shows). Since I, until now simply a humble XHTML+CSS guy, has started doing Ruby on Rails stuff, I thought it would be fun to combine my work at Idealist with my new passion for RoR.
Here's the question: Is creating an API something that is considered "advanced", as in out of the reach of beginner programmers? If I started to work on it, is it something that would likely frustrate me and go nowhere? I really don't have a clue right now.
If you need more information about the Idealist SDK to answer my question, the link is here: http://www.idealist.org/web-services/index.html, http://www.idealist.org/web-services/faq.html
I think it would be fun to use the API to remix the site, create some mashups, and try to create tools that make it easier for nonprofits and individuals to connect. As an aside, if creating an API is pretty difficult but someone on the list feels like volunteering their time to a nonprofit, let me know. ;)
Thanks!
Dave
PS - How do I get off of digest mode with this email list? I emailed the list admin (I think) to no avail. It's hard to have a conversation with everyone when I get all of the emails in one chunk.
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