The Twitter Dev/API list is the one list that there is a very often
posted thread of this nature. I call it the Twitter Think Tank
BandWagon™ :)
Twitter hits the news, the news reports that application x, y, and z
are all getting millions of users, millions of users translates to
some form of money, popularity, or general enticement.
And off to the races we are. However, programming is no different
than any other industry. And this reply goes out to "North Carolina
developer" and well as any other "Developer" that makes his way here.
Reporters work hard to become reporters, veterinarians work hard to
become vets, and programmers work hard to become programmers.
Starting your own business is the American Dream. They are all hard
work. Sure there are some overnight success stories, but those people
all had past experience in a development field. If you want to get in
on any form of new development, you would do yourself good to think
about it as any other idea you have ever had.
If you were sitting at home, and decided you were going to start a new
company, say, one that makes drills for the construction business.
Most logical people would start looking at other drills, taking them
apart, calling motor manufacturers, researching all aspect of drills
and the parts that make them up. If after all that, you still think
you have an edge, you may be able to move forward.
Development, be it Twitter or any other computer programming related
field, is no different. It very well may be harder.
Quite frankly, the lack of respect some developers get compared to
other fields is a little disconcerting. It takes many years to become
proficient in any programming language. That does not include the
ramp up time to learn the basics of what ssh, ftp, sftp, tcp/ip ack/
syn, post, get, json, rest, ajax, html, css, oop, precedural, I could
go on.
There is just so much to learn, and so many parts, I would say it is
one of the harder things to embark on. Add into all this, as a
startup, not only are you learning the technical sides of things, but
you are also learning how to run a business, marketing, etc, and each
of those sub aspects of your end goal, has just as large a laundry
list of acronyms to define it as well.
I do not want to discourage anyone, as anyone can learn anything, if
they put their mind to it. But please, of the many people who come to
this list, it is borderline insulting to say "I have idea x, how do I
do it".
No one walks into NASA and says, "I want to build a rocket, where do I
get started". It is that very analogy that non developers need to
understand. In all honestly, every passionate developer is a rocket
scientist in their own special way. At the very least, they are a
scientist.
To specifically answer the original posters questions:
1) If you are looking at a free host, you need to start your research
learning and understanding about hardware and software in general.
You need to learn that the backbone of your entire business is going
to sit on a server, or servers somewhere. Do not run your business on
free, it is not possible. Learn why this is not possible.
2) How do you display feeds? Start learning about RSS and any push/
pull driven protocol. In the end, it is all just a stream of data, you
read it in, and parse it, and display it how you want. It will be up
to you to determine the logic of how you do that. There are at least
20 variables I could ask, such as, how many feeds, when do you want
them to expire, what if they contain profanity, do you want links on
the feeds, etc, the list goes on. These are decisions you need to
make, and then learn how to programatically implement them.
3) If you have been through 20+ tutorials, and still are not getting
it, then you are looking at twitter tutorials, and you should be
looking at ftp, php, perl, apache, server, and other more general
tutorials. Can you build a rock, paper scissors game in php that runs
in a web browser?
Until you can take any idea you have and write pseudo code as to how
you would deploy it, asking on the Twitter list for specifics is too
far outside the scope of what you currently understand.
4) Curl I would lump into #3, it is just a tool, that can be used
within any language, to do some work, what you do with the data it
returns, comes back to general programming logic and understanding.
5) In regards to how to interact with the API. This is again, more
detail that is not important at this time.
6) I am taking some guesses here. My suggestions..
a) Find a patient web designer friend, have them show you how to
design web sites, so you learn ftp, and basic development of non
programming aspect of the web.
b) Start making simple apps in php, 50 lines or less. Rock, paper,
scissors, blackjack, or towers of hanoi, any of the most simple
of logically solved ideas that will teach you how to apply real
world problems to programatic solutions.
c) Ask other people about your idea, people who are deep into
development. Not "Twitter Developer", but just normal developers.
Ask them for brutal honesty.
I mean this in the nicest way possible, but it sounds like you have
asked how to write a best selling novel, bought a nice pen and paper,
but never learned English.
Twitter is not a point and click API, none are; a Twitter programmer
could build any web app they want. With that in mind, I would look to
forums and mailing lists for beginner introductions to programming. A
good programmer could read the twitter API, and make an app in a day,
as they could with any API, be it one from Twitter, google, Amazon,
ebay, or a private one.
Hope that was helpful.
--
Scott * If you contact me off list replace talklists@ with scott@ *
On Oct 27, 2009, at 1:04 AM, Andrew Badera wrote:
So what you're really asking for is someone to teach you web
development? I'm sure there are plenty of consultants on this list
who'd be willing to spend time in exchange for cold hard cash.
∞ Andy Badera
∞ +1 518-641-1280
∞ This email is: [ ] bloggable [x] ask first [ ] private
∞ Google me: http://www.google.com/search?q=andrew%20badera
On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 8:32 PM, North Carolina developer
<4northcarol...@gmail.com> wrote:
How to start the Twitter API on my site?
I have been playing with php for a month now and really want to use
the simplicity of the Twitter API to make a nice site, using my
visitors status updates, friends, and other info that the API shares.
I have a free hosting site at 000webhost.com if u never heard of it,
its free, offers php/mysql, and 100s of features for free. How
should
I start my new project.. if I want to simply... display a couple
feeds
on a page, with the header of the page including the visitor's
profile
pic and bio info. One feed will be theirs and another mine.
I've been thru 20 plus tutorials and they jump to fast into the
coding
part. I think i have every code there is as well as library or json
jquery twitterlib etc but no one ever shows how to start from
scratch.
How to use the curl options?
How does the php interact with xml pages and can u explain that
concept?
What do I need to do to get the API to work, come back to the page
with the accessed info from Twitter.
Please help, im desperate, in the middle of nowhere, and broke! lol
This is so interesting and hope to get some great answers from
someone
who can explain well. Thanks and God Bless!
