eli5 – What does an API & HTTP call mean? And what is the difference between both and their significance ?
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An API is like a drive-thru window. You tell the person at the window what you want, and they give you some food in response.
A website is you in that situation, the order you place is the “HTTP Request”, the food they give you back is the “HTTP Response”. You do whatever you want with the response – you can eat the food, throw it, bin it, whatever you want.
A website will make a “HTTP Request (or HTTP call)” to an API, the API will give the website some data as a “HTTP Response”, and the website can do what it wants with that data. Display it to the user, bin it, whatever it wants.
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