Co-Lab Roots Workshop: Intro to APIs

This two-hour course will provide students with a basic introduction to working with an Application Programing Interface (API). The course will focus on representational state transfer (REST) web service APIs and be divided into two parts. The first part of the class will provide an introduction to APIs, what you need to know to work with them, and how they can be used, as well as an intro to REST and OAuth through the Colab Streamer application. Part two of the class will provide hands on experience accessing the Twitter and Google Maps APIs. Attendees will have access to a Linux computational server to practice various tasks and perform labs in order to familiarize themselves with the environment. The class materials will cover a variety of tasks from those often considered simple, such as logging in, through more advanced tasks like building an application. Students are required to bring their own laptop computer; access to a Linux system will be provided for the course. Participants are required to bring their own laptop computer; access to a Linux system will be provided for the course. For participants using a Windows laptops, please make sure that you have an SSH client installed (A free client can be downloaded and installed from:http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html).