What is an API?
A Singaporean Developer’s Perspective
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If you’ve ever wondered how apps, websites, or systems magically talk to each other, congratulations — you’ve just stumbled into the nerdy world of APIs. Don’t worry, I’m here to hold your hand through this digital jungle.
Before you start imagining APIs as a secret society of programmers in black hoodies, let me clear that up. No, it’s not like Hogwarts for geeks (though that would be cool). API stands for Application Programming Interface. Still confused? Thought so. Let me break it down.
API in Plain Speak
Imagine you’re at a hawker center in Singapore. You walk up to the chicken rice stall and place your order. The uncle at the stall doesn’t just hand you raw chicken and a sack of rice. Instead, he does the magic behind the scenes — steams the chicken, cooks the rice, and hands you a plate of goodness.
In this analogy:
- You are the app.
- The hawker uncle is the API.
- The kitchen is the backend system, where the real work happens.
You don’t need to know how the uncle cooks the chicken. You just care about getting your food. Similarly, APIs let apps talk to each other…
