Re: drumbone api

What's the Sinatra framework?  Is that named after Frank?
 
Michael A. Norton
 




________________________________
From: Ed Summers <ehs@pobox.com>
To: public-egov-ig <public-egov-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Mon, June 14, 2010 7:49:38 PM
Subject: drumbone api

Of potential interest to egov folks that haven't already seen it announced:

http://services.sunlightlabs.com/docs/Drumbone_API/

Drumbone is a RESTful JSON API over data about legislators, bills, and
roll call votes. Unlike the Sunlight Labs Congress API, all data is
taken from existing APIs and data sources (especially GovTrack); there
is no original data here.

The name "Drumbone" is taken from the name of an instrument created
from PVC pipes whose length can be adjusted as needed to create
various sounds and music. Accordingly, the purpose of Drumbone is to
pipe in data from disparate sources, and redistribute it in the
simplest and most flexible format possible.

Drumbone is designed to serve thin clients, and applications where
bandwidth is at a premium. It was originally built to serve a mobile
app, the Congress Android app), and a widget service, Sunlight's
Politiwidgets. The idea is to give you all the information you need to
fill in a user interface in one HTTP call. It is not meant to serve as
a bulk data repository. Drumbone uses GovTrack for that, and so should
you.

Drumbone is written in Ruby, with the Sinatra framework, and uses
MongoDB for data storage. The code for this service is available on
Github.