What’s an API Anyway?

I’ve been coding for two years at this point and I will unashamedly admit that it wasn’t until recently that I understood what an API actually was. I knew the formal definition:

“Application program interface (API) is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. An API specifies how software components should interact. Additionally, APIs are used when programming graphical user interface (GUI) components. A good API makes it easier to develop a program by providing all the building blocks. A programmer then puts the blocks together.”

I had worked with APIs:

• Yahoo Weather API
• Google Maps API
• Twilio API
• Oxford Dictionary API
• Facebook Graph API
• Etc, etc, etc

I had even work on developing an API!

But it wasn’t until recently that it went from a conceptual idea to a pragmatic understanding. So today I am going to answer the question: What is an API Anyway?

In short, an API is a messenger that takes a request, tells a system what you want, and then returns a response back to you. APIs are what allow software programs to communicate with one another.

If a company wants to provide a programmer with access to the information the have, they would do so in the form of an API.

If I, Miss Programmer, wanted to add Facebook data to my app, I would use the Facebook API. I would read the documentation to find out how to structure my call to the API and what kind of information I will be getting back, and in what format.

The best API explanation I’ve heard is in the following video:

This video compares an API to a waiter. You, the customer, are the programmer, and the kitchen is the system. As a customer, you are provided with a menu of food that the kitchen can make for you.

How do you get the information to the kitchen?

This is where the waiter comes in. You relay the information to the waiter, who goes to the kitchen and makes the request for you. The waiter than returns the food you requested back to you.

The API is what takes the request you are making, tells the system, and returns information back to you.

As programmers, we often interact with APIs. Sometimes, we even help write one. Take, for example, our client Euphony. Euphony creates automated text-to-speech voices with emotion.

The CEO of Euphony is doing his technical thing and creating voices. He is then storing these voices on a server. In order for a developer to use one of Euphony’s voices in their application, they need to make a call to the server.

This is where Upstate Interactive came in!

We wrote a set of instructions for developers to be able to place that call. We told them how they need to structure the request by creating API documentation, and then told the server to respond in the form of an audio file. We created the connection between Euphony’s program and the developer.

Hopefully you now have a better understanding of what an API is!

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