What is exactly API and why we call it like that? I am learning web development, and always come across APIs. I would love to learn it through an analogy.
In: Engineering
Easiest way to describe it would be a moddable video game.
If a game is made, it is compiled, so all of its code is invisible and assets are usually packed so you don’t have loose files you could access and change. Thing of the game as whole, closed thing.
But if game developers had modders in mind, then game might have open ends, for example, a level or item editor, that has access into the “whole” of the game and can change something inside the “whole”. So the whole has some doors you can access and change inner workings somehow.
That’s sort of what APIs are – programs/databases with accessible doors so you could get information out of them.
Even simpler example would be city power grid, which you can access via wall outlets. While you can’t change anything major in the grid, you can access it still.
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