As a software developer, I enjoy most things technology-related. Lumped in that group are robots. It's always fun to see a piece of hardware in action, especially one you can program. And as an inquisitive engineer, I'm always looking for new projects.
How about a Robot?
What would really push my buttons is to create a robot. However, robots require a money investment: you have to buy the hardware to make them work. That whole money requirement is a downer. It's not that I couldn't do it. I just don't want to. (In fact, I have done it in the past with Lego Mindstorms and leJOS, but my Master Block is currently borked.)
Software Bots
But software bots on the other hand... now there's something that I could get into. No money barrier to get past, and a smaller learning curve in that I already have the necessary software background (i.e. no having to learn how to work with new hardware).
So, I know I want to start a project. Where exactly to go with this? What's a solid platform with which to interact with a bot?
I see two neat ones off the top of my head:
Blogging
Twitter
I'm not much into Twitter, but interacting with the API sounds like a fun challenge. Just from a brief search, there appear to be plenty of options for which software tools to use to hook into the Twitter ecosystem. I'll probably look for something in one of the following language flavors:
Java
Scala
C++
This could be a good excuse to try a new language, too. I'll just have to look closer at the available tools, and jump off from there.
Stay tuned as I continue my journey to build my first Twitter bot!
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