Twitter® Application Development for Dummies®

Chapter 3. Setting Up to Create Twitter Apps

In This Chapter

• Signing up for Twitter

• Establishing version control

• Creating your first Twitter app

In this chapter, you create your first Twitter application. Don't get too excited. The example Twitter app in this chapter is not the next "killer app." But it does illustrate how to work with the Twitter API. I also cover the importance of version control software, which helps you manage your code files

Create Your Developer Account

Before you can start writing Twitter applications, you need a Twitter account. I assume that since you are interested in developing Twitter apps, you must have some experience with Twitter using a personal account. If not, no worries; now is an excellent time to create your personal account. However, you will also need an account dedicated to your application.

Your application needs a Twitter account to authenticate with Twitter's API. You can use your personal account to do this, but if any problems arise with your application, your personal account may be penalized. There's no reason to take that risk.

Creating a Twitter account for development is easy:

1. Go to https://twitter.com/signup and fill out the provided fields.

2. Twitter asks if you want to look up any of your e-mail contacts on Twitter.

   I don't recommend this option.

   Note

   Twitter recommends a list of popular Twitter accounts for you to follow. Since this account is dedicated to your application and is not used for light reading, I recommend not following any of ...