Using Web Service APIs in Your Apps (Twin Cities .NET User Group Talk Video)

On November 5th I gave a talk at the Twin Cities .NET User Group entitled ‘Using web service APIs in your applications’. I started out with a very brief overview of how REST APIs work and then talked about the current state of using REST APIs in .NET. I followed that up with a demonstration of a new OSS project I’m working on for making accessing REST APIs much easier. The project is called RestSharp but in the talk I refer to it as Stillwater as that was my working name for it prior to coming up with the final name.

Next I put RestSharp to use by writing a Twitter search bot that runs as an Azure worker role searching for mentions of a search term and then creating FogBugz tasks from the results. Then I demonstrated using Twilio to receive phone calls (utilizing ASP.NET MVC) and create FogBugz cases from those incoming phone calls. And lastly I demonstrated how to use RestSharp with Twilio’s REST API to initiate an outgoing phone call from a .NET app.

This was my first formal technical presentation (I gave one at jQuery Conference, but that was much more informal) and you can tell early on in the video. Stick with it however, things smooth out as they go along. Also, the audio is a little tinny with some minor background noise, but it’s not unbearable.

I’ll be posting more about RestSharp/Stillwater soon as I get closer to launching it. You can follow @RestSharp on Twitter, follow the project on GitHub or visit the official site (nothing there yet though).

Watch the Video (49:25)
Download (right click, save as): MP4 (103MB) | WMV (135MB)