What is an API and why would I want to use one?

As a new developer, I have often heard of APIs, but never fully understood what they were. An Application Programming Interface is a tool that purposefully makes data accessible, and specifically defines how, and in what ways we can interact with this data. APIs usually have thorough documentation that is both technical and practical, detailing many designed user experiences.

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What is RESTClient and JSON?

REST(REpresentational State Transfer) Client, in our case, is a Ruby gem that acts as an intermediary between us and our API that collects a ‘response’. JSON(JavaScript Object Notation) is another translator, which takes the objects collected by RESTClient from our API request, and ‘parses’ that data, formatting the objects in our response into an easily accessible hash.

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