What is an API?

An API, or Application Programming Interface, is like a bridge that allows two different software applications to talk to each other. Imagine you're at a restaurant. You (the user) tell the waiter (the API) what you want from the kitchen (the server). The waiter takes your request, brings it to the kitchen, and then delivers the food (the response) back to you.

In the same way, an API lets one application request information or actions from another application, and it gets back the response. This can be anything from retrieving data, like weather information, to sending data, like submitting a form.

In short, an API is a set of rules that allow programs to interact with each other, making it easier for them to share data and functionality.

An example of what wat we see on the top image could be when we use the browser, we would make an HTTP request to a website on internet, that requests executes code on the server that will return us the webpage that is being displayed.

Not only we can get data, but also we can modify, update and delete data in a server. On another post, I will talk about the HTTP methods to communicate with APIs.