Amazon API

What is an API

Any application software running is divided into two distinct parts:

1. Front-end

The front-end is the web application or mobile application that is accessed by the user. The entire focus of the front-end is to provide a user-friendly graphical interface for the users to view and use.

2. Back-end

The back-end is the part where all the functionalities of the application are managed. The front-end contains clickable buttons. The back-end will decide what happens when we click on a button. The back-end will also decide what will be returned to the front-end for the user to see.

The API is particularly useful here because it connects the front-end with the back-end.

Understanding API with examples

Let’s suppose that we go to a restaurant to have some food. We call the server, order, and wait for our food. The server takes our order, informs the chef working in the kitchen about the number and varieties of dishes we ordered.

The chef cooks the food in the kitchen, places it properly on plates and the server brings it to us. We don’t need to worry about the process going on in the kitchen. We just want our food to be delivered to our table in time.

Applications work in a similar way. Users visit a web/mobile application and wait after clicking on a button (similar to us visiting the restaurant and placing our order).

The API takes our request to the backend (similar to the server taking our order to the chef).

The back-end program runs the desired task to return the output to the API (similar to the chef returning the prepared food to the server).

The API returns the received output back to the frontend application (similar to the server bringing us our food).

Thus, the API acts as a messenger between the front-end and the back-end.