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APIs make apps like a restaurant
Simplified explanation of APIs
You walk into a restaurant and are seated.
The waiter walks up and hands you a menu. You browse the menu looking over the available choices. You decide what you want and tell the server your choices.
The waiter sends the order to the kitchen. The kitchen completes your order and sends the food back the same as your order.
In a perfect world, this is how you order food in a restaurant but it’s parallel to the way an API (application programming interface) works.
In this scenario, you’re the application. The application has a menu (API) of items it can order from a service (kitchen). The order you placed with the waiter is the API call to the service. The service sends back a response with data (the food). The data is then processed (eaten) by the application. APIs are used all over the internet.
APIs are the glue connecting different applications together.
Now let’s answer some of the questions you may still have.
What is an API?
API, standing for application programming interface, is a set of definitions and protocols to build and integrate applications.
