New to working with APIs, any good tutorials/books/guides?

[Roy Smith]

In article <3fa5e368-a47c-4a7e-80dc-c5333fb5603e at googlegroups.com>,
 ApathyBear <nirchernia at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks, I think I have an understanding of what they are, but now am still a 
> little confused on how one goes about using it: how am I supposed to know how 
> to use an API in python? or in any other language for that matter? If an API 
> is defining rules in C, is all hope lost for trying to use it in python?

API is a very generic term for Application Programming Interface.  It's 
just the protocol that you need to follow to communicate with some kind 
of system of software package.

The documentation for an API should describe what operations are 
available, how you send data to it, and how it sends things back to you.  
Beyond that, there's not a whole lot that can be said because there are 
so many different kinds of APIs with vastly different interfaces.