Qué es una API y por qué conecta casi todo el software que usas

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An article explains APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) using a restaurant analogy, where the API acts as the waiter between an app and the system that supplies its data. It notes that weather, maps, and payment features in everyday apps often come from other services through this invisible intermediary. The piece describes how requests use a fixed format with a method, resource address, and parameters, and how responses arrive in structured data such as JSON. It also covers access controls like secret API keys, usage limits, and permissions, and cites open banking, government open data, and AI services as examples of APIs in practice. The article was written by José Ángel Maldonado Guzmán, an engineering student at the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México.

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