How To Create a Facebook Application

The answer to the question of how to create a Facebook application is neither straight forward nor easy to explain not knowing the technical experience of the requestor or reader. Describing how to create a Facebook application from the view of an experienced software developer may be meaningless to the novice. Describing how to create a Facebook application to an experienced software developer may also be meaningless if not enough detail is provided. Therefore, I will answer this question nearer to the side of the novice.

No, this does not mean sit down and relax but rather how to understand the internet protocol used for a Facebook application. REST is an acronym for Representational State Transfer and is the main methodology for building a Facebook application. REST is primarily used over HTTP to communicate with Facebook applications. Think of REST as transfer of information from one place to another.

Facebook is a web based application platform which exposes web services via REST for both internal and external Facebook applications. External applications are the kind of applications which are the subject of this article.

Web services within the scope of this question are application programming interfaces exposed through internet communication protocols. Application programming interface(s) (API) is software built by Facebook which you will use to build your own Facebook application. The majority of web services API (s) do not have a user interface. You will need to build a graphical user interface (GUI), i.e. a software application on top of the Facebook API. To clarify, a GUI in this case can be a web based application or an operating system application or another web service. Think of API as the motor you are going to build the car around.

No, this does not mean choose English, Spanish, French or German. Choose a computer programming language. Facebook supports some or all of the features in the following programming languages: ASP.NET , ASP (VBScript) , Cocoa , ColdFusion , C++ , C# , D , Emacs Lisp , Java , JavaScript , Lisp , Perl , PHP , Python , Ruby on Rails , VB.NET , Windows Mobile

Building a Facebook application requires the use of software development tools. Tools on the market for doing this are Microsoft Visual Studio, QT by Trolltech, Mono by Mono, and a host of other integrated development environments, (IDE). Your choice of tool depends on the language you choose. All three tools MVS, QT, MONO have FREE versions people can use to get started for free.

Facebook has a very well documented website for learning about what is required to build a Facebook application. This documentation will explain the technical specifications to which you will build a Facebook application. http://developers.facebook.com/documentation.php

You will notice I've pretty much described what you need to build a Facebook application not "how to". The "how to" is somewhat elusive considering all of the options Facebook provides and the available tools for creating Facebook applications. The real answer is; pick a software development tool, follow the directions on the Facebook website for your tool, and begin writing computer software in the computer language of your choice. Getting to the real "How To" would require asking this question after indicating or deciding which tools will be used to build a Facebook application. The choice of tools has considerable impact on how a Facebook application will be built.