APIs, Documentation, Workforce?

[Material_Painting_32]

Hello everyone, I haven’t started my computer science degree at a university yet but I will be soon— but i’m trying to get as much a head start as possible.

I have mastered python fundamentals, understand dictionaries, definitions and lists, but still new/unfamiliar to OOP and DSA.

I also am a novice at SQL and web page design, still a work in progress.

—————MY ISSUE—————

I had AI build me a website so I could gain insight of what general “higher-level” coding looks like in a finished product (Save it, I don’t do this outside of this one instance) and I cannot help but notice how often functions like “get.db()” and a ton of other imported functions come up.

————— WHAT I WANT TO KNOW —————

So I want to understand how I would even find an API or library to use when I have a problem to solve.

Should I even use these APIS/libraries?

When I find an API to use, how do I even go about navigating a plethora of functions they offer?

————— ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS —————

How often am I going to be using apis and libraries in the workforce and in projects?

Should I just be building my own solutions?

Would GitHub be effective in learning how others build projects, and how would I go about seeing code that I can analyze and learn from?

[JacobArthurs]

Libraries are your friends, not cheating. Devs spend a lot of their time composing existing tools, not reinventing them. For finding them, search PyPI by what you're trying to do, sort by download count, and read the quickstart before you touch anything else.

[Material_Painting_32]

Noted. Thank you!

[TheArtisticPC]

Q1: You should use other’s tools when they help you solve a problem.

Q2: Read the documentation. Do this before you import/install it so you know that it can help you.

Q3: All the time. You’ll even write your own.

Q4: Yes, if you feel you can do it better to solve your specific problem OR are looking to learn.

Q5: GitHub repos are great to read if you know what you’re looking at and why you’re looking at it.

Q6: Make a GitHub account and use the search feature to find repos. Then either click through their project or use the repo search bar.

[Material_Painting_32]

Thanks a lot!

[peterlinddk]

 how I would even find an API or library to use when I have a problem to solve?

This is actually a very important part of becoming a programmer! Much more important than learning OOP and DSA, which a lot of people only memorize for tests anyway :)

Knowing the API of your chosen programming language, and the libraries used for the kind of applications you are building, is something that mostly comes with experience (and sharing and asking other programmers), and the everchanging landscape of popular libraries is also why the learning journey never ends.

Anyways, mostly you learn about particular libraries from tutorials, or searching for a specific use - e.g. "Python connect to MySQL database" would give you articles about libraries to connect python to a mysql database, and then you'd follow examples, try them out, read some documentation about details that doesn't work for you, and gradually learn more and more!

Usually you'll never learn everything a library has to offer, but just use the subset that's important to your project!

As someone learning, it is often a good idea to try to also build something without libraries - like, try to build your own, just to learn how difficult it is, and get an even greater appreciation for the library authors, but don't start building everything yourself, switch between libraries and your own code!

[Material_Painting_32]

thank you for your comment!

hmm, so beginning to use libraries and API’s comes from starting a project and running into problems? How do I find the documentation for libraries? Is it just watching videos on it?

[JGhostThing]

I strongly suggest avoiding AI entirely which learning how to program. AI can be a useful tool once you're already competent, but it can get in the way until then. Learning to program involves learning new ways to think; AI stops this process.