My life in a Python Package: a Human Programming Interface, by karlicoss

@karlicoss is the author of the Human Programming Interface (HPI) aka “my life in a Python package” that you can read more about here:

I consider my digital trace an important part of my identity. Usually the data is siloed, accessing it is inconvenient and borderline frustrating. This feels very wrong.

In contrast, once the data is available as Python objects, I can easily plug it into existing tools, libraries and frameworks. It makes building new tools considerably easier and opens up new ways of interacting with the data.

HPI is a Python package (named my), a collection of modules for:

  • social networks: posts, comments, favorites
  • reading: e-books and pdfs
  • annotations: highlights and comments
  • todos and notes
  • health data: sleep, exercise, weight, heart rate, and other body metrics
  • location
  • photos & videos
  • browser history
  • instant messaging

The package hides the gory details of locating data, parsing, error handling and caching. You simply ‘import’ your data and get to work with familiar Python types and data structures.


From the Github README:

Why?

The main reason that led me to develop this is the dissatisfaction of the current situation:

  • Our personal data is siloed and trapped across cloud services and various devicesEven when it’s possible to access it via the API, it’s hardly useful, unless you’re an experienced programmer, willing to invest your time and infrastructure.

  • We have insane amounts of data scattered across the cloud, yet we’re left at the mercy of those who collect it to provide something useful based on itIntegrations of data across silo boundaries are almost non-existent. There is so much potential and it’s all wasted.

  • I’m not willing to wait till some vaporwave project reinvents the whole computing model from scratch

As a programmer, I am in capacity to do something right now, even though it’s not necessarily perfect and consistent.

Video

https://vimeo.com/541871679

Register for more events like this »