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Discussion on: What is an API?

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mercier_remi profile image
Rémi Mercier

Yes, the contract was (and still is tbh) an API concept I found difficult to understand. May be because a lot of public APIs have a very loose understanding of contract breach (ie no backward compatibility). But again, not-so-well-known APIs upon which a lot of hardware is built fell into the contract category.

Your explanation is 👌 Max and made it much more graspable to me.

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steelwolf180 profile image
Max Ong Zong Bao

Actually, it took me a while in working with a frontend developer that made me realise the importance of it.

I found out later that either you create your own contract by yourself or you could use existing template contract like OpenAPI Specification to facilitate and make your life easier for API development.

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mercier_remi profile image
Rémi Mercier

Yes yes, Swagger is awesome. I've only beginning to use APIs that use Swagger, and it's neat.

Didn't realize it was a contract, though 😅. But now that you pointed it out, this seems obvious!

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steelwolf180 profile image
Max Ong Zong Bao • Edited

Hahaha check out Postman, It's a godsend and allows you to import OpenAPI files into Postman to make your life in creating APIs easier.

I believe the new release of Postman allows you to create your OpenAPI specs as well.