About API´s

http://www.metatrader4.com/en/brokers/api
Original at: http://www.metatrader4.com/en/brokers/api

It´s time to talk about Application programming interfaces, that thing all of us young software developers has used at least one time and maybe without knowing what it is:

In Jeff Standen words:

You can consider an API as the alternative “user interface” that software uses to interact with other software.

We humans are familiar with user interfaces that have fancy layouts with buttons, fonts, colors, graphics, etc; and most of that is unnecessary to a machine.  Machines wouldn’t open up a program or website, take a screenshot of that section of the monitor, and then try to parse its meaning visually like a human would.

Machines just need a shorthand way to do things like checking the current weather or adding an event to your calendar.  That’s what an API provides.

APIs can be web-based, or specific to a platform.  Google has APIs for search, calendars, translations, etc.  Facebook and Twitter have APIs that allow software to automatically post status updates.  Apple provides many APIs for building iPhone apps.

https://www.quora.com/profile/Jeff-Standen

So, APIs gives us the option to make more “easy” the way we program and connect to other software. Let´s tink in an example:

Imagine a 70´s or earliest car, the one that needs to be “recharged” with a pulley to obtain enough power to be moved, you constantly needed to check for water, oil and conditions of the car and the only thing you were able to see were the velocity in a tiny indicator.

Let´s have a look at the other side of the coin. Nowadays, cars starts with a button, you don´t need other thing that see the screen in the car to know all the state of it (in modern ones), velocity, temperatures

https://sanjaysaha.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/api/
http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/optimove-api-custom-audiences/433003
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