[p2pu-dev] P2PU API

Tue May 31 04:01:57 UTC 2011

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
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> p2pu-dev mailing list
>>>>> p2pu-dev at lists.p2pu.org
>>>>> http://lists.p2pu.org/mailman/listinfo/p2pu-dev
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> p2pu-dev mailing list
>>>> p2pu-dev at lists.p2pu.org
>>>> http://lists.p2pu.org/mailman/listinfo/p2pu-dev
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> http://reganmian.net/blog -- Random Stuff that Matters
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> p2pu-dev mailing list
>>> p2pu-dev at lists.p2pu.org
>>> http://lists.p2pu.org/mailman/listinfo/p2pu-dev
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> p2pu-dev mailing list
>> p2pu-dev at lists.p2pu.org
>> http://lists.p2pu.org/mailman/listinfo/p2pu-dev
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> p2pu-dev mailing list
> p2pu-dev at lists.p2pu.org
> http://lists.p2pu.org/mailman/listinfo/p2pu-dev
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.p2pu.org/pipermail/p2pu-dev/attachments/20110531/1bd5d520/attachment-0001.html>