For our first project at FlatIron, we had to design a CLI application using either an API or scrapping. I decided to use API for retrieving data for 50 breweries in San Diego. In my application, I give the user a choice to either search by name or brewery type, and based on their input, a list will generate. If they wish to learn more about a particular brewery, they can. The data that they will find includes the id number, name, brewery type, street address, phone number, and website.
Figuring out where to start this project was challenging for me. Most of the labs we had practiced with already had everything setup, and we just needed to write in the code based on the spec. Here, no specs were given, and we had really think about the flow of the application. Essentially, we had to put our shoes in the mindset of our audience, and make sure our code accounts for every possibility that the user may input, and depending on their input, we must ensure that our code would not break or freak out.
This was nice little project to begin with, as I got to see my project work. It really opened up my eyes to the endless possibilities of human creativity.