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What is an API? Quick Guide to New PMs
If you have landed into Product Management role recently and your technical skills are still rusty Or if its your first job at being a Technical PM, this article would help you out! So lets dive into it!
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐀𝐏𝐈?
APIs are mechanisms that enable two software components to communicate with each other using a set of definitions and protocols.
𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤?
The application sending the request is called the client, and the application sending the response is called the server. In the honey bee example, the hive is the client, the flower is the server, and the bee is the way to communicate (REST API request).
𝐓𝐲𝐩𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐏𝐈𝐬?
- SOAP APIs (Simple Object Protocol uses XML)
- RPC APIs (Remote Procedure Calls)
- Web Socket APIs (used JSON)
- REST APIs (uses HTTP, most popular and flexible)
