3. What are APIs?
★ “Application Programming Interface”
★ We’re talking about web APIs
★ Gives web apps an “interface” for
interacting with other software
★ Typically returns data in structured
formats like XML and JSON (Jason?)
4. APIs are structured
★ Don’t confuse APIs with crawlers and
robots (GoogleBot)
★ APIs deal with structured data (a user
has an name, email and phone)
★ Data is available in a specified format
and is usually documented
21. # build a google maps URI
image_tag("http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?
center=#{url_for(@person.location)}
&zoom=12&size=256x256&maptype=roadmap&sensor=false")
22. # URI base
http://maps.google.com/maps/api/
# map position and location
staticmap?center=#{url_for(@person.location)}
# zoom and size
&zoom=12&size=256x256
# map type and sensor
&maptype=roadmap&sensor=false