In this post, we'll build a simple web application using the pico stack.
This example is built by layering a new ruleset onto a pico hosted by the Pico Labs Affiliate Network (PLAN), where applications are only for private viewing (whilst logged in to an account therein).
Here we show how to program a public web page within that same pico.
There have been several posts about Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), but little explanation or motivation.
Everyone knows that the world wide web is bursting with useful and interesting information. Generally we get this information in our browser.
Besides the countless websites that we enjoy with the browser, there are many more sources of information that are out there, on the web, but do not have a human-facing presentation. To consume these, you must have a program that uses their API.
When learning a new programming language, it is customary to start with a "Hello, World!" program.
This tutorial will guide you through this process for the KRL programming language* used with picos.
In the third note of an earlier post on Managing channels, we promised this post.
Buy low; sell high.
Running a pico engine in an AWS EC2 instance will cost a few dollars a month. Such a site could host thousands or probably even tens of thousands of picos. So, sell control of a pico for ten dollars a year and you should be able to make a profit.
When using PicoStack, code and data are combined within a pico. Together they represent some entity, which is responsive and reactive.
The code is written in KRL, the language you will need to learn (after having learned enough HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to get started). Since KRL itself consists of ASCII text (except in character strings and comments (where you can insert other UNICODE characters)), you can use your favorite text editor or integrated development environment (IDE) to write your code.
Besides maintaining this code on your own machine, you will probably want to use a code repository in the cloud. This post explores possibilities.
Web APIs that follow the OAuth pattern need special treatment.
Besides needing a client id and client secret, API calls that do actual work require a bearer token, which is generated by a special call to the API.
So, using such an API is a two step process:
While this blog has so far been mostly timeless, I'm going to comment here on a current event: an article arrived today in my mailbox, titled "The End of Programming"* and subtitled, "The end of classical computer science is coming, and most of us are dinosaurs waiting for the meteor to hit," written by Matt Welsh.
I'm arguing that the use of PicoStack to develop small web applications could continue, long after most computer applications are developed using artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, and code is being written routinely by AI agents instead of humans.
