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APIs

In the context of the web, you might already have thought about APIs in the form of services made available by third parties (to find out more, take a look at our guides to the best JavaScript APIs, HTML APIs and Google APIs).

Google, for example, exposes a Google Maps API that you can consume as a developer to integrate Google’s mapping, street view, navigation and more into your app. This involves importing scripts hosted on Google servers, then using objects and functions from those scripts in line with the API documentation, which it provides. APIs like this are generally what we’d refer to as “server-side APIs”.

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Steven Jenkins is a freelance content creator who has worked in the creative industry for over 20 years. The web and design are in his blood. He started out as a web designer before becoming the editor of Web Designer magazine and later net magazine. Loud guitars, AFC Bournemouth, Photoshop, CSS, and trying to save the world take up the rest of this time.