To Get started on your API learning journey, you will need to know about some important things, including:
- API Endpoints: Endpoints are URLs where APIs can be accessed. APIs are just website databases after all, and to ask them for help you must call them by their URL.
- HTTP Methods: These are specific words that we use in code to tell the API what we want it to do.
- GET: Retrieve Data.
- POST: Send data to the server to create a resource.
- PUT: Update an existing resource.
- DELETE: Remove a resource
- Parameters: API parameters are options that can be passed with the endpoint to influence the response. Basically, it tells the API what specifically you are asking for, so hat the API gives you a more tailored response. APIs have a lot of information in them, and you probably don't want them to info dump on you!
- JSON: AKA JavaScript Object notation, it is just a way that the computer will answer your API request. It usually looks a little bit daunting, so some of the code you will see will "parse" the JSON response, which just means that the code is making the response of the API nicer to read. More on this later...
