Working in a SaaS company, we regularly deal with and come across APIs. Examples here would include; writing clients for them, creating & updating our own API or even in some cases, using other ones without even knowing about them.

Have you ever wondered what actually API is? What says behind the acronym, how to properly build, utilize it and making our life easier with them? Because we have asked those questions of ourselves, carried out some research in the subject and decided to share this knowledge.

Recently, we hosted a Developer Event in McSwiggans Pub & Restaurant in our home of Galway. This was the second Galway Developer Meetup where we covered the API topic in some detail.

Java JSON REST API with some wrapper on the top of it. Graphics © Alan O'Rourke

We had 4 spearkers on the night covering the following:

• Introduction to API: Liam introduced us to the magic world of API including some of the key terms and definitions used…
• Creating a sample REST web API: Paweł demonstrated how to use Amazon Web Services to create sample REST web API.
• Using Android to Call from a RESTful API: Cillian presented how to utilize sample API by creating simple Spotify player for Android platform.
• In-app purchase APIs: Finn Krewer from 9th Impact game development company shared his knowledge about purchase APIs across various mobile platforms.

Sample sever-less API solution presented during the meeting utilizing few Amazon Web Services like [Lambda][6] and [API Gateway][7] Graphics © Alan O'Rourke

Our meetup was a great success and we’ve received so much positive feedback from attendees. Thanks to OnePageCRM for sponsoring the event and Finn from 9th Impact for taking the time to present and speak with our attendees after.

We hope that all of you have great time during the meetup either by listening to our talks or by sharing some knowledge at the end.

If you have any ideas of subjects which we can work towards for our next meeting(s), and/or you want to share your knowledge as well, feel free to contact us either via Meetup.com website or simply drop us an email to devteam (at) onepagecrm.com.

If you wish to check out some of the materials from the night including slides and sample code from our talks, see the resources section below.

Resources

• Liam’s introduction talk slides: slides.com
• Paweł’s server-less API talk slides and code samples: bitbucket.org
• Cillian’s mobile API client talk slides: docs.google.com
• Source code of the Android Spotify player: github.com
• Finn’s In App Purchases talk slides: docs.google.com