This summer I’m taking part in the Outreach Program for Women, working on making the MediaWiki API more usable. As a part of this, I’ll be blogging every week or two with things I’ve done, things I’ve learned, or general thoughts as I get into the free/open source software world.

When my mentor mentioned that she had a project that could use an intern, I was not 100% clear on what an API (Application Programming Interface) was. I knew it had something to do with another way to interact with websites without actually having to visit the relevant webpages, but I’d never given it much thought.

I was interested, though. I went off for some quality research time and about ten days later I’d finished the project proposal for my OPW application.

Don’t believe anyone who tells you learning to code is easy…

…and don’t believe anyone who tells you that APIs—especially MediaWiki’s—are intuitive.

As I gear up for WikiConference2014 next weekend, I’ll post resources I found helpful and tips for getting started yourself.