You've probably heard the terms "API" or "REST API" often in the programming world, but you might still be confused about what they actually mean and how they work. Don't worry — in this article we'll cover REST API from scratch in easy-to-understand language, complete with analogies and examples that make it clearer.
What Is an API?
API stands for Application Programming Interface. Simply put, an API is a way for two applications to "talk" to each other. Imagine you're at a restaurant. You don't walk straight into the kitchen to get the food yourself — you order through a waiter. That waiter is the API: an intermediary that takes your request, delivers it to the system in the back (the kitchen/server), then returns the result to you.
A real-world example: when the weather app on your phone shows the forecast, it uses an API to request weather data from the weather service provider's server.
What Is REST?
REST stands for Representational State Transfer. It is an architectural style (not a protocol or standard) that defines the rules and principles for building APIs using HTTP. An API that follows REST principles is called a RESTful API or REST API.
REST became popular because of its simplicity — it uses the existing HTTP protocol and doesn't require a special framework to be used.
This is only part of the article. For the full discussion, with examples and step-by-step details, you can read it on the original source:
What Is a REST API and How Does It Work?
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