API crash course.

Question

I have an interview for an internship with The Home Depot on the 13th of October ill be working with pseudo code in a group setting which I feel I will do pretty well. I have some experience with coding in Python, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. What I do not have experience in is API which in the interview they want me to work on an coding an API for one hour. What would be the best way to learn how to do this in the short time I have before the second interview.

Answer 1

"flat" is not a type of API.

API (application programming interface) could mean any number of different technologies, which lets external parties or other programs connect to a software system.
Even the standard features and built-in objects, functions of a programming language, can be referred to, as the API of that language.

In terms of web, the 3 main and widely used technologies are
SOAP - is very old and using always XML format as the carrier of data
REST - more modern and it can use different type of data formats, but JSON is very typical
RPC - tends to use a unique data serialisation format, check "protocol buffer"

https://www.techtarget.com/searchapparchitecture/tip/What-are-the-types-of-APIs-and-their-differences

https://grpc.io/docs/what-is-grpc/introduction/

other distinction might include if the API is synchronous or asynchronous. you might want to lookup also "websocket" to learn about APIs that can provide an interactive continuous flow of information over an open "channel".

Answer 2

Tibor Santa okay thanks for clarifying that for me.

Answer 3

I would:
Read up about API here. https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/api/
And then Find a Youtube video about how to create API's

Answer 4

Ive done a bit of web searching on the topic. Seems there are 3 types flat restful and soap. Thats about as far as i have gotten. Since hd is mostly a web based company im hoping it will be restful

Answer 5

https://flat.io/developers/api/reference/ Tibor Santa is this not an api

Answer 6

Joshua yes, it IS an API of a specific IT system, I am not familiar with flat.io but based on their website, it is an online collaboration platform for music composers.
This is not a *TYPE* of API.