‘API’ has become a widely used term to describe a mechanism for organisations to provide data to end-users. The term API is being used in marketing literature and sales pitches with wanton abandon. But where did this term originate and what does it mean to us now?

In this talk, I explore a little of the history of the term API and covers what he considers to be the three most current use cases. I talk about REST and GraphQL with a look at the evolving standards in the ‘API over the internet’ space. I also look at how the popularity of Event Sourcing has led to a rise in the number of Asynchronous APIs and how standards are emerging in this area too. Finally, I round off with my predictions for the future of Web APIs and signposts some of the technology which is shaping that future.