You will discover:
➡️ How APIs are working
➡️ How to request an API
➡️ How an API answers
➡️ Why is it interesting to have an API
➡️ The API business
An API (Application Programming Interface) is an interface between multiple applications. It means that it allows two applications to communicate.
An API follows the principle of question and answer, exactly as humans do.
Questions, and answer are the same as humans, but it's written in a technical way.
Request: "Give me all the pictures of Bender's profile"
Answer: "Here're all pictures of Bender's profile
Because APIs are not humans, you can't ask questions as you do on Google. To communicate with them, you can use fourth basic requests.
Most of the time, an API is answering your request with a language called JSON.
JSON stands for "JavaScript Object Notation". It's a data representation easy to read by humans and easy to manipulate through code.
When you use an API on your project, you will divide the visual part (front-end) from the server (back-end). It means that your application will be at least divided into two projects.
An API is a valuable part of a project. Some companies build their applications and sell access to their API at the same time.
For example, for a company that makes home deliveries, it's a huge time saver to outsource the geolocation part to Google.
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Top comments (2)
Man!I wish this article was longer....thanks though....great content.
Thank you! 😊 In the beginning, it was a Twitter post, but I thought it was interesting to share it here (this is why it's short)!