In the last session, we explored the New York Times APIs, approaching our chosen API as a problem to be solved with a process that included research and testing. For homework today, attempt to perform the tasks from the exploratory session (reproduced below) with the API you researched earlier in the week with an eye to answering your research question.
Steps in your process might include:
- Research. Where are the docs? Do you need to autenticate? Which provided methods might you use? What form are results returned in?
- Authenticate. If the API requires authentication, secure a key if possible and find out how to provide it when using the API.
- Formulate a request. Find out the base URL, choose a provided method, and examine examples. Attempt to create a request that will extract data from the API.
- Experiment. Chances are that your request didn't work the first time. Search for other examples of using the API using Google and try different formulations of the request to see if you can extract data. You may need to use Google to research common errors and negative responses.
- Explore. Time permitting, consider next steps for what you'll do with the data. This could include processing it, storing it, or performing explorations of it.