Know what an application programming interface (API) is and how to use it

The competition in the digital industry is getting faster every day. Without realizing it, there are more and more innovations that are more sophisticated and effective to use. This is due to human needs, which often change quickly.

Therefore, it is important to support digital transformation with rapid development and more innovative services. To be able to develop programs quickly, you need a contact person. And usually, developers use APIs to help them in application development.

API stands for Application Programming Interface, i.e. as an intermediary between an application and other applications or between a client and a server. Where works to allow feature merging without having to add data manually.

The existence of APIs in the technology world is certainly very helpful for increasing flexibility for ease of use, design, and management. This can provide business opportunities for innovation. In addition, the use of APIs can increase time and cost efficiency.

Uses of the Application Programming Interface

Application programming interface or API has uses that can provide benefits, especially for application developers. This is because web developers and programmers can use APIs to make their job easier when communicating with difficult and different programming languages.

So that developers don’t have to manually provide their data anymore because they can easily use the API to get the data they need from other platforms via the API. Not only does it provide convenience in simplifying data, but there are also still many uses of the API that you can benefit from.

Here are the uses of the API (Application Programming Interface) and the benefits you need to know.

1. Increase in productivity

The existence of an API in the business world is certainly very useful to increase business productivity. When developers spend too much time building applications from scratch or scratch, it negatively impacts the productivity of the business.

Hence, this is where the API is used to provide solutions so developers don’t spend a lot of time developing applications. APIs allow developers to quickly implement existing functionality instead of building from scratch. This can increase the productivity of the company to use the available time more efficiently.

2. Easier application development

The next use of the API is that it can make it easier for you to build applications that are quite complex for businesses. This is because applications built using the API automatically have the functionality provided by the target application.

Additionally, with the API, companies don’t need to build many applications to support other applications. This is because the required application APIs can be connected, making it easier to create the main application for your business.

3. Reduce server load

With the API in the business industry, it is useful to reduce the load on the server you want to target. Not all data required by the server has to be stored completely since an API is already available. You just need to request the API to get the latest data from the main application server.

This is of course very helpful since the server is not loaded with a lot of data. And can minimize the occurrence of website downtime because we know that a down server can affect your website’s performance.

4. Save costs

Another use of the API is to save operational costs for your business. This is because the cost of building an application varies depending on the factors present. This is the use of APIs that can save costs starting with the skill of the developer, the type of technology used, and the complexity of the project.

Since the API can significantly reduce the development effort when creating applications, it is a good opportunity to save costs. Where developers can use third-party APIs cheaply or use their internal APIs.

How does the API work?

In general, API is used for many things and reasons needed by the developers of an application. A concrete example of an API implementation that you usually see in everyday life is when you want to order food in a restaurant.

Where a server or waiter becomes an “intermediary” to convey your order to the chef in the restaurant. This is because the chef cannot take orders directly so you place orders through the waiters. After that, the service sends your order to the kitchen and the chef takes it.

As is known, the application programming interface acts as an intermediary between the main application and other supporting applications. But how does the API itself work in the digital industry? So the following convey will give a little explanation of how the Application Programming Interface (API) works that you need to know.

1. Application Access API

In this step, you’ll start by accessing the API to look up the information you want to know. When you want to access an application to order a meal at a restaurant, the main application accesses the connected restaurant’s API.

2. Place an order on the server

Once you have taken the first step, the next step is for the API to place an order or call the server. Where the server forwards your order to the restaurant server according to the destination. So the API later notifies the restaurant that the main application needs the food data that was created earlier.

3. Server receives API response

After a call to the server, the server gets the response that the API previously executed. Where in this way the server begins to perform an analysis that matches the information you are trying to find. After finding the data according to your order, the server returns to the API. Then provide data on food availability, prices, and where you placed your order.

4. API delivers results to the application

Finally, the API returns the results of what the server did to the application. Where the results of the main application information you previously accessed are provided. Normally this process is done at the same time as requests to other restaurants, so the application can display menus from different other restaurants according to your request.

The server data transfer process differs depending on the web service or application used. However, the request and response process is all done through an API. If the IU or user interface is designed for human use, then the API is designed for application or computer use.

So it can be concluded that using API is a solution for you to develop a website better and easier. This will surely motivate you if you want to create a full-featured website and application.