Exploring Google APIs with Python (Wesley Chun)

Perhaps you've considered exploring Google APIs for your app. Maybe you've even tried in the past. You may have even successfully used the older "GData" protocol to access Google APIs. Or you've tried using Google APIs but have been daunted or discouraged by the complexities of authentication and authorization with OAuth2. Maybe you've never touched a Google API and are curious. What would it be like to write an app that talks to Google Drive, Google Maps, YouTube, or Google+?

In this talk, we'll introduce the Google APIs Client Library for Python, and how with it, you (and your app) can access most Google APIs. The library supports a long list of Google APIs and services, all of which are listed at http://developers.google.com/api-client-library/python/apis. We'll then show you how to get the Client Library on your system.

Once you've got the Client Library installed, what then? The next part of the talk covers the steps necessary to create projects and enable specific Google APIs for those projects via the new Google Developers Console. Once you've enabled access to those APIs, how would you write application code to send requests to and receiving responses from those services?

Some APIs only require simple API key access while others require full authorization. We'll show short Python scripts that demonstrate both types, including actual API access after passing through security... in other words, once the OAuth boilerplate is done, we can focus on the code that does the "real work." Time-permitting, we'll also describe other Google developer tools where Python plays a big part and which may prove interesting to experiment with, including application hosting, big data, and machine learning, and cloud storage services.