INTRODUCTION TO APIs
You ever wondered how apps like weather forecasts or social media feeds access real-time information? Well, The secret lies in APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).
APIs are basically contract that allows code to talk to code
they allow for sharing of resources and services across applications
what are APIs?
lets take an example of a restraunt.in a restaurant there is a waiter the customer and the kitchen.in order for the customer to order for example coffee he/she has to call the waiter and the waiter takes the information to the kitchen.in this scenario the customer(client)this can be browser, web app, etc. waiter(API)simplified interface interacting with backend ,kitchen(server)where backend processing happens.
APIs work similarly, enabling applications to "order" data from servers in a structured way.
Why are APIs important?
help developers integrate exciting features and build automation example: using weather API instead of launching weather baloons
allow enterprises to open up their product for faster innovation.
types of API
hardware API-this is simply interface for software to talk with hardware a good example is phone camera talks to the operating system
software library APIs-interface for directly consuming code from another codebase example is using methods from a library you import into your application.
Web APIs-interface for communicating across code bases over a network. example is fetching current stock prices from a finance API over the internet.
How do you build APIs?
REST(representational state transfer)-this is what we will be using
Graph QL
Web sockets
Web hook
why use postman?
postman is a user friendly platform that empowers beginners to.
send API requests using(GET,POST,PUT,DELETE)
Inspect responses
organize requests
test and debug
Conclusion
By understanding postman ,you will unlock doors to a vast world of APIs empowering you to build applications that interact with online services
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