Confused about APIs? What is an API? What does REST mean? Make sense of API terminology once and for all.

1. APIs explained
WEB TECHNOLOGIES PROGRAM
Make sense of REST, GET and headers once and for all

2. How businesses can utilise APIs
1. Integrate with third party APIs
2. Build your own APIs for internal use
3. Build and expose your own APIs to
your customers

3. Integrating with 3rd party APIs

4. Your Uber is on the way
Oh yeah and btw, the Twilio API
is powering this.

6. The business case for APIs
1. Functionality - adds functionality to your product
which would otherwise take years
2. Effort - the dev effort is low for the business
impact / value provided
3. Growth - new functionality becomes available all
the time as large companies mature and develop
their API over time
Pros
1. Dependencies
2. Risk
3. Costs
Cons

7. 2. Exposing your own APIs

9. Carrier
API
Retailer
API
Example
How Shutl uses APIs to offer a same day delivery product

10. API terminology

11. A
P
I
Application
Programming
Interface
W
T
F

12. Requests and responses
Can I have the picture of a dog please?
REQUEST
Yep, here it is.
RESPONSE

13. Requests and Responses
Spotify
API
REQUEST
Can I have the Spice Girls album please?
RESPONSE
Sure, here it is. You lucky thing.

14. JSON

16. R
E
S
T
Representational
State
Transfer

17. REST
• Resource based - in RESTful APIs we are dealing with ‘things’ or ‘resources’.
• Representations - in RESTful APIs we deal with representations of resources.
• Six constraints - in order for a service to be truly RESTful, it needs to comply
with the following restraints:
1. Uniform interface (HTTP)
2. Stateless
3. Client server
4. Cacheable
5. Layered system
6. Code on demand
REST is an architectural framework

19. HTTP methods
POST Used to create new resources
GET
Used to read / retrieve a representation of a
resource
PUT Used to update / replace data
DELETE Used to delete data

20. Endpoints
Spotify
API
/albums
The ‘Albums’ endpoint is ‘exposed’
REQUEST
Call the ‘Albums’ endpoint to retrieve an
album resource on the Spotify API
RESPONSE
Spotify API responds with a
representation of the album resource in JSON format

21. Example
How Spotify outlines endpoints in its documentation

22. API documentation

23. API documentation
Authentication - instructions - how to connect with the API
API endpoints - what endpoints are available
Resources - what resources are available for you to access.
Request format - how an HTTP request to the API should be formatted
Response format - how an HTTP response is formatted when you receive
the response
Response codes - what response codes are included in the response
Definitions

24. Response codes
200 Success. Everything’s fine.
301
The resource you’re looking for has been moved
permanently.
400
There’s a problem on the client side. Most famous is
the 404 error.
500 There’s a problem on the server side.

25. Resources

30. APIs & product management
1. Opportunities
2. 2. API Audit
3. Confidence

31. A brief recap
1. Value - APIs can add vast amounts of value to your business
2. REST - modern APIs use REST architectural principles
3. Terminology - terminology is often misunderstood by business folks and PMs alike