[hackerspaces] SpaceAPI Meeting #1: Integrating External APIs

[Ryan Rix]

Meeting went well, I think.

Attendees:
- Ryan Rix, HeatSync Labs
- Eric Stein, Pumping Station One
- Will Bradley, HeatSync Labs
- atom_bomb, Ace Monster Toys
- Dave Rorex, Ace Monster Toys
- Bill French, FUBAR Labs

it was suggested and agreed by the folks in the meeting to add the following 
optional object to SpaceAPI:

+      "apis": {
+        "oac-web": {
+          "url": "http://revspace.nl/access-control",
+          "description":"http://revspcae.nl/wiki/Oac-Web"
+        },
+        "pamela": {
+          "url": "http://revspace.nl/pamela/data.php",
+          "description":"http://0x20.be/Pamela"
+        }
+      }

+* apis (objects, optional) - one or more space-hosted services (Door access 
control, space-usage statistics, ...)
+  * Each key is the unique type of the service as defined in the Service 
description, and each entry is an object that has the following fields:
+    * url (string, mandatory) - url pointing to the external resource
+    * documentation (string, mandatory) - url pointing to a human-readable 
documentation of the service

I'll be opening a pull request and tagging version 0.14 when Toba merges a 
requisite pull request.

Basically, it was decided that an ID, API URL pointer and Human-parsable 
Description URL pointer was all that was needed, because defining a language 
which could be used to provide machine readable API descriptions would suck, 
and we hate WSDLs. The URLs can be, but don't necessarily need to be hosted on 
the SpaceAPI github; if enough people care about a given protocol that they 
use it, it won't bitrot, and if it does, it's not hard to re-spec and host 
somewhere else.

Thanks for the quick and awesome meeting, folks, hopefully we'll see more 
people using SpaceAPI and exposing their spaces' APIs on it!

r

On Tue 21 August 2012 18:40:05 Ryan Rix wrote:
> Heya everyone,
> 
> A few spaces now have begun to notice some limitations with the existing
> SpaceAPI implementations and want to expand upon it in a properly planned
> fashion and in a way that does not step on the toes of any existing efforts.
> As a result, we have scheduled an IRC meeting to help in this planning.
> 
> Our primary discussion will revolve around the integration of 'external'
> APIs to each SpaceAPI endpoint. For example, we at HeatSync Labs have been
> working on making our Open Access Control system web enabled (currently
> through a desktop connected to the OAC over serial, but soon with an
> Ethernet Arduino), and would like to expose that functionality in a
> standardised way. We are also implementing PAMELA, and a few other external
> service we would like exposed to the hackerspace world. Pumping Station One
> has a bunch of APIs as well that are not currently exposed on SpaceAPI.
> 
> If any of this interests you, please stop by! :)
> 
> SpaceAPI Discussion Meetup
> Topics for Discussion:
> * Integration of external API endpoints in to the SpaceAPI definitions
> * Integration with Open Access Control
> When: Wed Aug 29 18:00 – 20:00 Mountain Time - Arizona
> Where: #SpaceAPI on irc.freenode.net
> 
> That is, unfortunately, 01:00 UTC, sorry Europeans. :(
> 
> --
> Ryan Rix
> http://rix.si
> 
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-- 
Ryan Rix
http://rix.si