APIs

Mon, 02 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This devlog is just a log of my thinking regarding what we're discussing in class this week/this week's readings

Looking at the use of code in back-end development to show the complexity as websites gather information from multiple APIs and push it into the front-end development. Exploring how much code goes into a basic website, vs our github websites. We learned how to use inspector to manipulate the front-end code and how to hack this website data. When we are loading a website, we are loading up a copy of that website, so you're not hacking the original website and manipulating it. Human-centered views are one-directional, which brings us to idea of APIs.

APIs = lego block to extract data onto our own computers or websites. If there is no API you have to write scraper code to take information from non-API websites. Woof.

The API makes a machine view and a human view. An API is how to get your data onto the internet, distinct from the web, so that someone else can use your data and combine with something else.

So instead of creating a static webpage with information, we are trying to create something that can be easily mined/queried/etc.

The Leaflet API is incredibly cool, and likely very helpful if we chose to utilize in conjunction with the API we are trying to build out of the CTSM markers. I still need to struggle through comprehending how to build an API, but seeing in class today how many ways we can manipulate the data from this is super exciting. After the readings this week, and Professor Graham's presentation I understand what we are trying to produce for the HeritageJam.

The reading that was particularly helpful was the one on Art + Data Day. The introduction of concepts like rotho_team_selfie expanded my mind as far as how we can actually manipulate the data we have. It also opened my thought process to how helpful this is for research, as there are few other ways that you could mine data on how people interact with artwork, which is a very interesting line of inquiry into emotional history or art history. See annotations here: https://mw2015.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/art-data-building-the-sfmoma-collection-api/#annotations:W2tECFwsEeqFj4ejQMrlng

data management | Academic

APIs