We often come across this acronym in the world of software development, but what exactly is an API, why do we need it?
API is an acronym for application programming interface and is an intermediary between two separate programs. It's a medium to communicate between two separate software entities involving required authentication and security. To understand Api's there is a very common analogy called restaurant-waiter analogy is used. Let's try to understand Apis with this analogy.
The best way to understand Api is to look into the structure and functioning of a restaurant. There are clients who order the food. A kitchen where food is cooked and there are waiters who serve the food. Now in this dining system, an API is analogous to a waiter. The main responsibilities of a waiter in a restaurant are as follows:
- Accept requests from the client on some specific terms (cost of the food).
- Process the information and tell about the order to the kitchen.
- Grab the food from the kitchen once cooked.
- Serve it back to the client.
- Transact the cost for this service.
This is almost what an API does, its main task is to act as a mediator between two separate software entities. A real-life example is that of a tie-up between prime video and IMDB. the prime video uses IMDB API to list the rating of movies on some terms and authentication.
API is really important as it is considered the backbone for service delivery, communication, and security.