APIs for Beginners – How to use an API (Full Course / Tutorial)



What is an API? Learn all about APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) in this full tutorial for beginners. You will learn what APIs do, why APIs exist, and the many benefits of APIs. APIs are used all the time in programming and web development so it is important to understand how to use them.

You will also get hands-on experience with a few popular web APIs. As long as you know the absolute basics of coding and the web, you’ll have no problem following along.

🔗 Course Notes: https://github.com/craigsdennis/intro-to-apis-course/blob/master/course-notes.md

⭐️ Course Contents ⭐️

⭐️ Unit 1 – What is an API
⌨️ Video 1 – Welcome (0:00:00)
⌨️ Video 2 – Defining Interface (0:03:57)
⌨️ Video 3 – Defining API (0:07:51)
⌨️ Video 4 – Remote APIs (0:12:55)
⌨️ Video 5 – How the web works (0:17:04)
⌨️ Video 6 – RESTful API Constraint Scavenger Hunt (0:22:00)

⭐️ Unit 2 – Exploring APIs
⌨️ Video 1 – Exploring an API online (0:27:36)
⌨️ Video 2 – Using an API from the command line (0:44:30)
⌨️ Video 3 – Using Postman to explore APIs (0:53:56)
⌨️ Video 4 – Please please Mr. Postman (1:03:33)
⌨️ Video 5 – Using Helper Libraries (JavaScript) (1:14:41)
⌨️ Video 6 – Using Helper Libraries (Python) (1:24:40)

⭐️ Unit 3 – Using APIs
⌨️ Video 1 – Introducing the project (1:34:18)
⌨️ Video 2 – Flask app (1:36:07)
⌨️ Video 3 – Dealing with API Limits (1:50:00)
⌨️ Video 4 – JavaScript Single Page Application (1:54:27)
⌨️ Video 5 – Moar JavaScript and Recap (2:07:53)
⌨️ Video 6 – Review (2:18:03)

🎥 Course created by Craig Dennis, Developer Educator at Twilio
🐦 Craig on Twitter: @craigsdennis

Check out free Postman programs for students and educators to help you learn more about APIs: https://www.postman.com/company/student-program/

Learn to code for free and get a developer job: https://www.freecodecamp.org

Read hundreds of articles on programming: https://medium.freecodecamp.org

And subscribe for new videos on technology every day: https://youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=freecodecamp

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This Post Has 27 Comments

  1. Bikemountain

    Boy the accolades. Personally I found the Twilio bit useless. I can't think of a reason I would need Twilio. The format and usability has changed. Never was able to get it to work from the command line. I tried both CURL and Powershell.

    Then you go on and use it in your next presentation on Postman. Well that was not helpful. Now I've got an hour and 15 minutes invested and no returns. Bummed. I do wish you would have stuck with Spotify.

  2. waffletube

    Could never get it to throw or catch the error b/c it wouldn't even attempt to send once I put 42 in there.

  3. Trevitray

    fantastic course and tutorial, i am so happy i came across this, thank you so much

  4. ShopCrate

    Well guess what I'm the only one here who doesn't understand b'cus I'm not a developer 🤷🏾‍♂️

  5. Gorlung

    are you big poppa? "popa" in russian means "ass"

  6. Forrest Gump

    Man, I was looking for a video like this for a long time…. finally found it 💯🔥💓

  7. Kristina

    Not me yelling 'P' in my house….. love this guy, made my day of strugle with API lot easier 😀

  8. Mathomhouse

    Great information and I 've learned a lot, thanks! The first two-thirds gave are good and give very clear information but then for handson Craig insists on using a service called Twilio (he works there 🙁) and I had to jump through so many hoops to get it running fully faultless I gave up on that, also for being pointless and a waste of time. He should have continued working with Spotify he used in the first part as this was already open anyway.

  9. Aparna

    i adore the way this course is delivered, this goes to show how complex topics can be had fun with and also consumed in a healthy way. Awesome job !

  10. Greg Ellis

    not subscribing or engaging with ads. go woke, go broke (non-binary inclusivity is a positive?) keep the virtue signaling out of tech. soon enough you morons will insist that 1s and 0s can identify as others.

  11. Henry Zhao

    Does anyone know if there's a way to automate an API request? So for example, every hour (or every time some trigger happens), an API request gets executed?

  12. D S

    Need to import humor too 😉

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