[seagrant-dev] API Discussion Questions
Kennric
kennric at osuosl.org
Wed Jul 30 17:42:44 UTC 2014
On Wednesday, July 30, 2014 04:25:53 PM Carr, Justin wrote:
> Sea Grant Devs,
>
> I had a chance to speak with Mark yesterday about the questions we had
> accumulated:
>
> 1. Ken identified 3 categories that describe the functionality of
> the What's Fresh app: Products(Fish), Vendors, and Locations. a.
> Is there a category of data that is most important to display when the app
> is first opened? (What's the first thing a user should see?)
> >> Most casual users will want to know location first
I think the api as designed will allow for a query by the user's current
location, or by sending the coordinates for a specific pre-defined location
(i.e. have the phone mapping api translate a typed in address into lat,long
coordinates to send to the api, or have a list of named locations stored with
associated lat,long.)
Another possible api addition may be a parameter for proximity - as in: all
the vendors of tuna within 20 miles of Newbort.
>
> b. Is this category always the most important to the user? (Does
> navigating the app's data have a default starting point?)
> >> No, final answers yet. But location seems like a reasonable default until
> >> we know better.
I think the "nearby" api endpoint will meet this need - it will return a list
of everything near a given location (user input, or the device's current gps
location), which can then be filtered by product, etc.
> 2. Are there any locations we will need to represent that are
> outside of major coastal cities?
> >> There are major producers in semi-rural/rural locations: Port Stevens,
> >> Garibaldi. May need to include additional information to assist users in
> >> navigation. All ports will have a valid address w/city information.
> >> Flexibility will be important here.
> 3. In the Working Waterfronts app, Coos Bay's data will be
> represented first and then other cities/locations will be added later. Does
> the What's Fresh app also have a similar rollout plan?
> >> Yes, populated by effort, this will likely be ongoing for the next year.
>
I think keeping the api very general with respect to location data, i.e. not
having pre-defined places, allows the most flexibility here - wherever a vendor
is, we can see their proximity to wherever the user is looking.
> 4. Do you have any sample data that we could look at? If not,
> would it be possible to create a set of realistic data?
> >> Yes, Jamie and Mark will provide that data some time this week.
>
> 5. Do we need to worry about figuring out what's in stock beyond
> season/vendor presence?
> >> Oregon Fish and Wildlife determines fishing seasons but vendors have
> >> licenses to operate outside these times. Season has no bearing on
> >> inventory availability and is purely there to assist consumers in
> >> learning about when they can expect to have the best time finding good
> >> deals or catching their own fish.
Hmm, so season is an arbitrary data point, but someone, somewhere, has to
click a 'this product is available now' checkbox to know for sure. This really
belongs with the vendor, but a general product 'available' field will at least
tell user's that yes, somewhere Tuna is being sold.
> 6. Do we need to talk about fish preparation at the dock? (dried,
> fillets, shelled/whole)
> >> Fresh, Frozen, Live, Preserved (dried, etc), Canned
>
I would prefer not to hard-code these kinds of values, but there are good
reasons to have a select-box for data entry rather than allowing arbitrary
strings. Perhaps another model, in which admins can add their own preparation
types?
I have made changes to the draft api doc and draft data model doc to reflect
the ideas in this email.
Ken
> 7. What is the logic behind when a fish is in season? dates?
> legal protections? Can this be overridden?
> >> Product availability is not the emphasis wrt inventory availability. This
> >> aspect should be open for discussion on Wednesday.
> Justin Carr
> Systems Development Engineer - Business Solutions Group
> Oregon State University
> 100 Bexel Hall
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