Tell me more ×
Programmers Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for professional programmers interested in conceptual questions about software development. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 6 down vote favorite
2

I'm looking to learn more about the Facebook platform but I can't say I've found the IRC channel, the Facebook Developer Forum, or the online documentation very helpful.

Has anyone else recently been looking into this and can offer some advice on other sources of information or relate their learning experience?

share|improve this question

closed as not a real question by Yannis Rizos♦ Nov 6 '12 at 6:34

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

5 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

There are two different aspects in facebook platform. first is graph api, http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/, which is abstract concept and independent of the SDKs. [this used to be the old Rest API, but FB is not moving to graph api]

Second is the SDKs that offer easier way to invoke this graph api. http://developers.facebook.com/docs/sdks/

Then there are social plugins for sites, which I consider icing on the cake http://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/ :)

There is not much science behind it. Once, you understand graph api and structure of information, try to get SDK(examples) and retrieve/manipulate some information on a test account. [creation/deletion of test account itself is now done by graph api(or may be old rest) calls.]

For beginning FB development, I have found the FB documentation itself to be enough. However, if you don't know all this background then it is a bit cryptic.

share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

For testing out Facebook Graph API, they provide a decent tool:

https://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer

share|improve this answer
+1 nice tool. Somehow I missed that one. – tyndall Jul 26 '11 at 15:37
up vote 0 down vote

If you are looking for more development info and you are familiar with PHP, this article should do fine as a starting point : http://thinkdiff.net/facebook-connect/php-sdk-3-0-graph-api-base-facebook-connect-tutorial/

If you want an insight to how Facebook develops their platform, try this link :
http://framethink.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/how-facebook-ships-code/

share|improve this answer
Give you a good example of a problem. Had 4 users authorize an app of mine. The User count in the app dashboard still says 0. How often is this calculated? or did I do something wrong? Can't find any info on this. Thought I could ask on IRC and get a quick answer. No luck. – tyndall Jun 3 '11 at 19:53
up vote 0 down vote

You also may want to check out github.com and other open source code repo hosting sites. Search for facebook projects and take a look at how other people are doing thing.

share|improve this answer
up vote -1 down vote

I would recommend reading Facebook Application Development with Graph API Cookbook - http://www.packtpub.com/facebook-application-development-with-graph-api-cookbook/book.

share|improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.