Hello and welcome to this course on API development. Nearly all of us have interacted with an API before, even if we don't know it. If you've checked the weather on your phone or if you've ordered food online, then you relied on an API to give you access to another app's functionality or to retrieve information for you. In fact, most of today's web applications rely on APIs to work. An API or Application Programming Interface is a gateway to back-end data. APIs allow different apps and services to exchange information or allow access to functionality, and as the use of mobile and other technologies increases, so too does the demand for APIs. This means that learning how to create and use APIs may be invaluable to you and your developer journey. In this course, you'll learn about the tools and resources available to you to create and use APIs. To start off, you'll learn more about how APIs are used in the real-world. Then you'll have an opportunity to reflect on what you hope to learn. The course syllabus, and how to be successful in this course. After this, there's a short refresher on how HTTP and HTTPS work, including HTTP methods, requests, responses, and status codes. Before moving on to rest APIs. You will learn how to set up Visual Studio Code and configure it with all the necessary extensions, and you'll also learn how to use a packaging tool like pip envy. When it comes to rest APIs, you will learn about their key characteristics, benefits, states, and resource types, as well as the API requests to life cycle. You'll also learn about the principles of authentication in a rest API, and what the differences between authentication and authorization, and you'll have an opportunity to create routes with the correct naming conventions when you create your own API and organize an API project. In the second week, you will learn how to install and set up Django Rest framework, or DRF. Following this, you will also learn how to use function and class based views to create API endpoints efficiently. You will enrich your knowledge of serialized and gain insight into how to convert and validate your data. You'll learn how to map user input to database models using deserialization, as well as how to use throttling and caching to optimize and protect your API. In the third week, you will learn how to control access to your APIs and put systems in place to ensure you maintain their health. Lastly, you'll have an opportunity to complete the graded assessment, which is the little lemon restaurant API project. You'll get an opportunity to provide feedback on your classmates' projects as well since this is a peer-reviewed assignment. If you've encountered new technical words and this video, don't worry if you don't fully understand them now. Everything you need will be covered during your learning with each lesson made up a video content, readings, and quizzes. There are many videos in the course that will gradually guide you towards your goal of becoming a developer. Watch, pause, rewind, and re-watch the videos until you are confident in your skills. Then consolidate your knowledge by consulting the course readings and putting your skills into practice during the course exercises. Along the way, you'll encounter several knowledge quizzes where you can self-check your progress. Remember, you're not alone and considering a career as a developer, which is why you'll also work with course discussion prompts that help you to connect with your classmates. It's a great way to share knowledge, discuss difficulties, and grow a network of contacts and the development world. To be successful in this course, it is helpful to commit to a regular and disciplined approach to learning. Although it is an online self-paced course, you need to be serious about your studies and, if possible, map out a study schedule with dates and times that you can devote to attending the course. In summary, this course provides you with a complete introduction to API development and will set you on your way toward professional certification and a career in API development. Be sure to also check out the other courses in this learning path. Looking forward to working with you on your learning journey.
