Hi Tip-Sheeters, This week brings one of the most exciting times of the year for me: the National Football League kicks off its regular season. I'm a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs, and they'll be playing their opener in São Paolo, Brazil (in Arena Corinthians if there are any serious soccer fans out there). Creative Commons, TheBo 2007 This also means Fantasy Football Season begins!! I'm a huge fantasy football fanatic, and I'll be managing five teams this year. What is fantasy football, you...
20 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Tip-Sheeters, Great interview tips for your up-skilling this week, and don't miss a couple of links at the end related to a new tool worth checking out. Creating an Up-Skilling Plan Andres Vourakis is a Data Scientist at Nextory and the creator of the To Be a Data Scientist newsletter, which provides a lot of technical content and career advice for data scientists. Andres shared a post recently titled How I'm Currently Upskilling as a Senior Data Scientist in Tech (2025 Edition) with a...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Hi Tip-Sheeters, This week I'm bringing you a chat with another one of the speakers from the API Superstream I spoke at a few weeks ago. Zdenek Nemec is the founder and CTO of Superface.ai, where he is pushing the boundaries of agentic AI. He is a frequent speaker on APIs and AI, and presented at the Superstream on the topic “APIs for AI: Have we failed?” Ryan: Your topic had an intriguing title “APIs for AI: Have we failed?” I think the first thing we all want to know is…have we? Z: We (as...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hi Tip-Sheeters, This week, I'm sharing details on an upcoming virtual event I'm speaking at, which is hosted by Mike Admundsen, author of multiple books on APIs. I also have a conversation with Mike later in the newsletter. The Upcoming Event I'd like to invite you to the API Superstream: AI and Agents on the O'Reilly Platform, July 17 from 10 am - 2 pm Central time. Here are a few of the planned presentations: Building and Securing Remote MCP Servers Directly from Your API Gateway – Martyn...
3 months ago • 3 min read
Hi Tip-Sheeters, This week I'm excited to share a chat I had with Sebastian Ramírez Montaňo, creator of FastAPI and founder of FastAPI Labs. There's some good stuff in our conversation, including Sebastián's tips on skill-building and advice on staying positive. If you've had this email forwarded to you, I hope you'll consider subscribing weekly at https://tips.handsonapibook.com/. The Big Announcement For background, you might have seen the announcement a few weeks ago on Sebastián's...
3 months ago • 6 min read
Hello Tip-Sheeters, I hope you're having a great week. In this issue, I'll take you through some initial Python coding for Model Context Protocol (MCP), a recent open-source project led by Anthropic. I also share a behind-the-scenes look at book launch day, which was a lot of fun and successful. MCP and Your APIs In Tip Sheet #19, I shared 7 steps to getting up to speed on MCP (or any new technology). In that, I gave some background on what MCP is and how it relates to using APIs with AI....
6 months ago • 4 min read
Hi Tip Sheeters! This week I will take my first look at Model Context Protocol (MCP), which Anthropic rolled out during the holidays last year. Along the way, I'll share my approach to getting up to speed on a new open-source framework or tool. Let's get started! 7 Steps to get up to speed on MCP (or any new tech) There are some repeatable steps about how I get to know a new tool. One thing to remember up front is that just because someone proposes a standard or releases a tool doesn't mean...
7 months ago • 3 min read
Hello Tip-Sheeters, I hope your week is off to a good start. When I'm asked how someone can start or grow their data career, my short answer is generally "Build something and share it". We're in the golden era of cloud computing, with hundreds of low-cost ways to build data apps and share them with friends, colleagues, and potential employers for minimal cost. There's just no reason not to jump in and get started. One fun way to do this is by joining an online data science contest like the...
7 months ago • 2 min read
Welcome to the Tip Sheet for APIs, AI, and Data Science. This week I am going to share some advice for keeping focused on learning when the hype cycle gets overwhelming, as it was last week. We'll also meet a new expert coding in the open, and see a blog post on using an API Gateway with FastAPI. Keeping Your Head in the Tech Storm When you see the technology and business world go wild about the Next Big Thing, how do you react? Excitement? Anxiety? FOMO? Fatigue? To begin with, I hope that...
8 months ago • 4 min read
