Application Programming Interface

Hi everyone I hope all are safe and good In this article I am going to share something about Application Programming Interface (API).

What is an API ?

API is the acronym for Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Each time you use an app like Facebook, send an instant message or check the weather on your phone, you’re using an API.

Example

When you use an application on your mobile phone, the application connects to the Internet and sends data to a server. The server then retrieves that data, interprets it, performs the necessary actions, and sends it back to your phone. The application then interprets that data and presents you with the information you wanted in a readable way. This is what an API is — all of this happens via API.

The Modern API

Over the years, an “API” has often described any sort of generic connectivity interface to an application. More recently, however, the modern API has taken on some characteristics that make them extraordinarily valuable and useful:

• Modern APIs adhere to standards (typically HTTP and REST), that are developer-friendly, easily accessible, and understood broadly
• They are treated more like products than code. They are designed for consumption for specific audiences (e.g., mobile developers), they are documented, and they are versioned in a way that users can have certain expectations of its maintenance and lifecycle.
• Because they are much more standardized, they have a much stronger discipline for security and governance, as well as monitored and managed for performance and scale
• Like any other piece of productized software, the modern API has its own software development lifecycle (SDLC) of designing, testing, building, managing, and versioning. Also, modern APIs are well documented for consumption and versioning.

I hope all get something about API and its uses.

Thank you!