[p2pu-dev] P2PU API

Tue May 31 05:58:43 UTC 2011

I know that for me personally, having some kind of simple API would let me
experiment with lot's of ideas in a language I am comfortable with, and
without having to worry about making the main platform unstable, etc. I am
sure there are other people out there who have lot's of great or crazy ideas
- by letting them play we'll see which ones turn out good.

Stian

On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 12:41, John Britton <public at johndbritton.com> wrote:

> I've got a lot to say on this topic, but unfortunately don't have much time
> to respond right now. I'll think about this a bit more over the next few
> days and try to add a bit more meat if I can.
>
> I can't think of many drawbacks or risks aside from the attention diverted
> from other tasks. There are so many benefits to having an API: reporting,
> automated courses, visualizations, mashups... the list goes on. I think one
> of the most interesting and important benefits is that having an API will
> make us think about what we're building in terms of an API. We can even go
> so far as to build things using our own APIs.
>
> The effort is non-trivial, and I think the first version of the API would
> need us to get a bit more settled on the structure of courses / study
> groups. I would love to get the dev group together somewhere convenient for
> another code sprint to get something out the door. I think we could get a
> pretty good idea that way without using up a lot of paid staff time.
>
> --
> contact info:
> http://www.johndbritton.com
> @johndbritton - http://twitter.com/johndbritton
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 12:01 AM, Jessy Kate Schingler <
> jessy at jessykate.com> wrote:
>
>> i agree with stian;s characterization. let's call the statistics stuff a
>> reporting API, and the other an extension API (as in, people could use it to
>> extend the ways people interact with p2pu).
>>
>> pros/cons/risks... for a reporting API: it gets down closer to personal
>> user information. it might be harder to anonymize, and we should be clear in
>> our documentation how we are doing this. on the other hand, it's going to be
>> read-only, and i think it will translate into direct benefits viz. our
>> ability to communicate what is happening at p2pu on a quantifiable level,
>> report back to funders, etc. it could also help get other researchers
>> involved in studying what's happening at p2pu.
>>
>> can people think of others uses for a read-only API?
>>
>> for an extension API to be particularly useful it's going to need to be
>> read-write, which is inherently more complex. an extension API would
>> definitely be cool and i would LOVE to see what people build with it.
>> however, i feel like a statistics API would probably have more immediate
>> benefit-- there's a genuine demand for it, whereas we haven't had a direct
>> demand for an extension API.
>>
>> Jessy
>> --
>> http://jessykate.com
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 5:50 PM, Alison Jean Cole <
>> alisonjean.cole at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> When the details of Philipp's questions are sussed out we should make
>>> sure to get these development priorities into the roadmap (
>>> http://wiki.p2pu.org/w/page/36991876/Roadmap-2011) (which needs cleaning
>>> and updating).
>>> ALISON
>>> new.p2pu.org/en/alison/ <http://p2pu.org/users/alison>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 7:22 AM, Pippa Buchanan <
>>> Pippa.Buchanan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I hadn't thought about visualisations - but yes, that would be cool and
>>>> incredibly useful for SoW when reporting back to our other stakeholders :-)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 30 May 2011 16:05, Stian Håklev <shaklev at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I could see two different use-cases for APIs (and I'd love to hear
>>>>> about others). One would be to give access to system statistics, and let
>>>>> people create cool data visualizations, etc faster than if they had to have
>>>>> all their code written in Python and included int he official platform. The
>>>>> other is if someone actually wanted to develop a stand-alone client for
>>>>> P2PU, for example for a mobile platform. I'm more interested in #1, and it
>>>>> seems more doable (we are a much less stable platform than Twitter in terms
>>>>> of functionality, and I don't immediately see the use of a stand-alone
>>>>> client, neither do I expect anyone to put tons of time into developing one).
>>>>> But I'd love to hear from others what uses you expect.
>>>>>
>>>>> Stian
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 19:53, Pippa Buchanan <
>>>>> Pippa.Buchanan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Can I add in an additional question for this - as I know it would
>>>>>> provide more clarity when explaining the benefits for me and other less
>>>>>> actively geeky community members. I'm only feeling 23.768% geek today :-)
>>>>>> *
>>>>>> How do we imagine the API being used?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> *Er, am I right in assuming that an API would allow people to build
>>>>>> tools to pull and push data onto the system? So theoretically a tool might
>>>>>> be built to allow offline creation of course and group content such as
>>>>>> tasks?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Or a wordpress plugin might be built using the API which would allow
>>>>>> users to submit a blog post as a response to a task?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Obviously, the great thing about APIs is that they really allow
>>>>>> interesting mashups to occur which we can't really predict - but it is
>>>>>> really helpful to know what types of things could obviously be developed
>>>>>> using this.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 30 May 2011 09:05, Philipp Schmidt <phi.schmidt at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> A P2PU API has come up on various threads. It's an interesting idea.
>>>>>>> Can we get a little more concrete on the following points, so we can get
>>>>>>> feedback from community and board, as well as determine prioritization vs.
>>>>>>> other development needs?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * What are the concrete benefits to P2PU? (drawbacks, risks?)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * What is the effort needed to implement, support?
>>>>>>> - paid staff vs. volunteer contributions
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * What are the actual next steps to move this forward?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Best - P
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>> http://lists.p2pu.org/mailman/listinfo/p2pu-dev
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> http://reganmian.net/blog -- Random Stuff that Matters
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>
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