Ask HN: How do I build apps with APIs?

  • You use whatever language you want to send an HTTP request with the parameters you want, get the data back, parse it, fiddle with it into the format you want and output the HTML. Or put it in a database for retrieval later. Or whatever you want.

    There are two distinct processes for you to implement. One is retrieving the info. Another is outputting it to your users. The simple case, albeit the slowest, is where you combine the two so that retrieving the data is done at the same time as outputting it. Or you can keep them separate by using a timer or something like cron to retrieve the info and storing it.