5 ms·

Building a Farmers Market API in less than an hour for $0.

91 points by yahelc 15y ago

tvtayber 15y ago
Unresponsive script crashed my browser. :\
- ctbarna 15y ago
  The data is pretty big (there are a lot of farmers' markets).
  - noblethrasher 15y ago
    The author may want to take a look at the clustering the markers. http://www.svennerberg.com/2009/01/handling-large-amounts-of-markers-in-google-maps/ http://www.svennerberg.com/2009/01/handling-large-amounts-of...
chefsurfing 15y ago
Way to go John!
p_monk 15y ago
Clustering the markers will greatly improve performance: http://google-maps-utility-library-v3.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/markerclusterer/docs/examples.html http://google-maps-utility-library-v3.googlecode.com/svn/tru... I actually had this same idea a few months back. I'm the developer of truxmap.com, a real-time food truck map, and I wanted to export the concept to farmers markets. However, the USDA data set isn't sufficient because it doesn't include days of the week and times. Nevertheless a map i easier to read than a table.
callmeed 15y ago
I have an app in the iTunes Store that covers farmers markets in CA, OR, and WA. If someone wants the code as a starting point for building an iOS app on top of this API, let me know. (I have no time to update it at the moment). http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/farmersmarkitwestcoast/id413973626 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/farmersmarkitwestcoast/id4139... I can also get some promo codes if anyone wants a free copy to try first.
cousin_it 15y ago
Why an API? The dataset is pretty small. Converting it from Excel to JSON and putting it up for download as one file would be more useful for any task I can think of.
- yahelc 15y ago
  Looks like ~7,100 in the dataset; its definitely not "Big Data", but its definitely sizable. The USDA .xls file is 16 megabytes.
  - cousin_it 15y ago
    Here's a single datapoint: { "type": "Feature", "id": "b52fc9c8940ff3885830dc3de305e5ac", "geometry": { "type":"Point", "coordinates":[-122.393,37.7955] }, "properties": { "_id":"b52fc9c8940ff3885830dc3de305e5ac", "_rev":"1-1b07544c7620ff6af55550eb2e3ed66a", "Jams":"1", "WIC":"1", "Vegetables":"1", "Street":"One Ferry Building, Suite 50", "Credit":"1", "Prepared":"1", "Soap":"0", "Nuts":"1", "MarketName":"Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market", "lng":"-122.393365", "Cheese":"1", "SFMNP":"1", "WICcash":"0", "Zip":"94111", "Seafood":"1", "Fruit":"1", "Herbs":"1", "Honey":"1", "lat":"37.7955195", "Description": "The Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market is located at \ the foot of Market Street and on the Embarcadero \ at the historic San Francisco Ferry Building.", "Flowers":"1", "updateTime":"4/14/11 12:02", "Website":"http://www.cuesa.org", "Bakedgoods":"1", "full_address": "One Ferry Building, Suite 50, San Francisco, California 94111", "Location":"City/ township public building grounds", "City":"San Francisco", "Crafts":"0", "Meat":"1", "Maple":"0", "County":"San Francisco", "State":"California", "SNAP":"1", "Plants":"1", "y":"37.7955", "x":"-122.393" } } About 1 kilobyte of text. Throw away the GeoJSON boilerplate and the long IDs, compress all the 0/1 fields into a single int (all entries have the same set of them), remove 2 of the 3 redundant copies of coordinates, basically strip away the cruft and you can make it 2x-3x smaller. So optimistically that would be about 3 megs of JSON. And the user can throw away unneeded data even further. I think the usability advantages of having the whole file available locally (compared to an API) outweigh the disadvantages here.
BenSS 15y ago
Neat, I've used localharvest.org that also provides more in depth information. I wonder if they started with the same data.
krosaen 15y ago
impressive! for more of the food graph, check out realtimefarms.com
gavinbaker 15y ago
Great idea! Why is it great? Because it's a technical achievement that is easily understood by the normal web user. It shows how technology can be used in basic ways to make information easier to use. Well done.
ck2 15y ago
Would sqlite be suitable for such a mini database?
sfboy88 15y ago
This is totally awesome in just about every way. I am also a recently re-located member of San Francisco and this is really interesting stuff.

91 points by yahelc 15y ago

tvtayber 15y ago

Unresponsive script crashed my browser. :\

ctbarna 15y ago
The data is pretty big (there are a lot of farmers' markets).
- noblethrasher 15y ago
  The author may want to take a look at the clustering the markers. http://www.svennerberg.com/2009/01/handling-large-amounts-of-markers-in-google-maps/ http://www.svennerberg.com/2009/01/handling-large-amounts-of...

chefsurfing 15y ago

Way to go John!

p_monk 15y ago

Clustering the markers will greatly improve performance: http://google-maps-utility-library-v3.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/markerclusterer/docs/examples.html http://google-maps-utility-library-v3.googlecode.com/svn/tru... I actually had this same idea a few months back. I'm the developer of truxmap.com, a real-time food truck map, and I wanted to export the concept to farmers markets. However, the USDA data set isn't sufficient because it doesn't include days of the week and times. Nevertheless a map i easier to read than a table.

callmeed 15y ago

I have an app in the iTunes Store that covers farmers markets in CA, OR, and WA. If someone wants the code as a starting point for building an iOS app on top of this API, let me know. (I have no time to update it at the moment). http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/farmersmarkitwestcoast/id413973626 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/farmersmarkitwestcoast/id4139... I can also get some promo codes if anyone wants a free copy to try first.

cousin_it 15y ago

Why an API? The dataset is pretty small. Converting it from Excel to JSON and putting it up for download as one file would be more useful for any task I can think of.

yahelc 15y ago
Looks like ~7,100 in the dataset; its definitely not "Big Data", but its definitely sizable. The USDA .xls file is 16 megabytes.
- cousin_it 15y ago
  Here's a single datapoint: { "type": "Feature", "id": "b52fc9c8940ff3885830dc3de305e5ac", "geometry": { "type":"Point", "coordinates":[-122.393,37.7955] }, "properties": { "_id":"b52fc9c8940ff3885830dc3de305e5ac", "_rev":"1-1b07544c7620ff6af55550eb2e3ed66a", "Jams":"1", "WIC":"1", "Vegetables":"1", "Street":"One Ferry Building, Suite 50", "Credit":"1", "Prepared":"1", "Soap":"0", "Nuts":"1", "MarketName":"Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market", "lng":"-122.393365", "Cheese":"1", "SFMNP":"1", "WICcash":"0", "Zip":"94111", "Seafood":"1", "Fruit":"1", "Herbs":"1", "Honey":"1", "lat":"37.7955195", "Description": "The Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market is located at \ the foot of Market Street and on the Embarcadero \ at the historic San Francisco Ferry Building.", "Flowers":"1", "updateTime":"4/14/11 12:02", "Website":"http://www.cuesa.org", "Bakedgoods":"1", "full_address": "One Ferry Building, Suite 50, San Francisco, California 94111", "Location":"City/ township public building grounds", "City":"San Francisco", "Crafts":"0", "Meat":"1", "Maple":"0", "County":"San Francisco", "State":"California", "SNAP":"1", "Plants":"1", "y":"37.7955", "x":"-122.393" } } About 1 kilobyte of text. Throw away the GeoJSON boilerplate and the long IDs, compress all the 0/1 fields into a single int (all entries have the same set of them), remove 2 of the 3 redundant copies of coordinates, basically strip away the cruft and you can make it 2x-3x smaller. So optimistically that would be about 3 megs of JSON. And the user can throw away unneeded data even further. I think the usability advantages of having the whole file available locally (compared to an API) outweigh the disadvantages here.

BenSS 15y ago

Neat, I've used localharvest.org that also provides more in depth information. I wonder if they started with the same data.

krosaen 15y ago

impressive! for more of the food graph, check out realtimefarms.com

gavinbaker 15y ago

Great idea! Why is it great? Because it's a technical achievement that is easily understood by the normal web user. It shows how technology can be used in basic ways to make information easier to use. Well done.

ck2 15y ago

Would sqlite be suitable for such a mini database?

sfboy88 15y ago

This is totally awesome in just about every way. I am also a recently re-located member of San Francisco and this is really interesting stuff.