Advanced Development Workshop for Alma: Optimized Python for Working with Data and API's
Presentation Topics
Alma
Presentation Topic Description
Thanks to Alma’s API’s, we can create custom applications, automate workflows, and perform batch operations not possible with Jobs and Sets. However, using the API’s on large amounts of data can be slow. In this workshop, we will explore tools and strategies available in Python that can make these tasks and applications more efficient.
Through demonstration and hands-on practice, this workshop presents a workflow for retrieving and processing a large data set via the Alma API’s. After a brief review of working with REST-ful API’s in Python, we’ll see how asynchronous programming can improve performance when making hundreds or thousands of requests. And time permitting, we’ll look briefly at pandas, a highly performant library for working with data, which can streamline our data analysis and cleanup.
Pre-requisites:
-
Basic Python programming, including familiarity with the following:
- Loops and iterables
- Native data types, including integers, strings, dictionaries, and lists
- User-defined functions
- Error handling
- Some familiarity with the Alma API’s
- Basic understanding of HTTP requests
More info, including technology requirements, learning outcomes, and preparatory materials can be viewed at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JFs1u68kgXJznNIfqtWQJipzqvsoKaV2MAKgPgMS2R4/edit