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General Discussion

Posted by Max Reichman
Max Reichman
29,276 Points

What are the best Treehouse courses to take if I want to understand what API is and how it works?

So, it seems as there is this new cutting edge thing nowadays known as "API", and it seems like a lot of programs use it and it might be kind of important. As some one who wishes to be on the cutting edge and has a burning desire to understand what API is and how it works, what Treehouse courses should I do? I just did the REST API course, which was cool. What next?

1 Answer

Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points
Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points

It just depends, and API could be, and often is available in a variety of different languages, so as long as you understand requests, callbacks, responses, and the language of your choice's syntax, you should be well on your way.

There is no, do this one thing and you'll instantly understand all API's, you just need to have a solid fundamental understanding of a language, and than when you read that API's documentation, you should be able to understand how it wants you to authenticate, how to send it a request, and what to expect as a response.

Max Reichman
Max Reichman
29,276 Points

Hmmm, okay, I think I get it. Every language has it's own APIs. What I was really referring to was the use of API to share data between web applications, but now I understand that API means more than that. I'm most interested in that aspect of API: using it to integrate web applications and share data. Do you think there are any specific courses that would help with understanding that? Thanks, fellow Washingtonian!

Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points
Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points

Hello to you fellow Washingtonian. Just to clarify, API's are independent of any language, and they are dependent on the service that is sharing the data.

For instance, Stripe as an API that works in PHP, Ruby, Javascript, and more languages. It allows you to do the exact same stuff regardless of language you're communicating in.

I don't think Treehouse has anything that is super specific to API's, but code academy does, which can be found here: https://www.codecademy.com/apis