What exactly is an API? We hear about how valuable APIs are all the time; our founder, Ross Mason, often says that they will have a significant impact on business. However, what is the definition of an API?
An API defines functionalities that are independent of their respective implementations, which allows those implementations and definitions to vary without compromising each other. Therefore, a good API makes it easier to develop a program by providing the building blocks.
When developers create code, they don’t often start from scratch. Fundamental to developer productivity is how APIs make often repeated yet complex processes highly reusable with a little bit of code. The speed that APIs enable developers to build out apps is crucial to the current pace of application development.
Developers are now much more productive than they were before since they had to write a lot of code from scratch. With an API they don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time they write a new program. Instead, they can focus on the unique proposition of their applications while outsourcing all of the commodity functionality to APIs.