Additional material and support for hackathon events
An Intro to APIs - good overview that introduces not only APIs but also several closely related technologies like web services and JSON (you can find a resource for JSON in the section, Related Technologies).
APIs 101: What Exactly is an API? - a YouTube video series produced by ProgrammableWeb which offer concise and clear explanations about everything related to APIs. Both Part 1 and Part 2 are worth viewing.
RESTful APIs are a particular category of APIs that follow very strict format and are quite popular for using external services. REST is an acronym which stands for REpresentational State Transfer. The following resources provide a great foundation for using this technology.
REST API & RESTful Web Services Explained - fairly long video but should be viewed before accessing any of the other resources. It presents a thorough explanation of REST services using basic coding examples.
RESTful Web Services Tutorial with Example -example of calling APIs through Microsoft’s .NET framework
What is REST API – A comprehensive Guide to RESTful APIs - This is a great general tutorial which uses the node.js framework. More info about node.js is given in the Related Technologies section.
How to design a REST API - explanation about naming conventions and API data models.
Furthermore, APIs are defined using an OpenAPI standard also known as a swagger file. It includes the details of how a particular API works and the data elements that it shares. Whether you write APIs r you just use them, being familiar with their details is quite useful.
Create Your First OpenAPI Definition with Swagger Editor is a great tutorial to learn more about this specification:
APIs send data using structured messages such as XML or JSON. Therefore, it is a good idea to have a strong understanding of JSON.
JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation which is a lightweight data format structure that is often used in web applications because the data can be read and parsed using JavaScript.
The Complete JSON Tutorial - Quickly Learn JSON - offers a great overview of the JSON object, including data types and formatting.
How to Learn JSON Absolute Beginner Full Course - very thorough video course that covers all aspects of JSON including how to use it in web development. It is very lengthy (47 minutes).