What is an API?

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http://live.pirillo.com/ - API stands for Application Programming Interface. It allows developers share information between their programs. It’s a standard method where developers can access a program (or website) and build a program around it.

Wikipedia has this to say:

An application programming interface (API) is a source code interface that a computer system or program library provides to support requests for services to be made of it by a computer program. An API differs from an application binary interface in that it is specified in terms of a programming language that can be compiled when an application is built, rather than an explicit low level description of how data are laid out in memory.

Recently there has been a debate over MySpace shutting down widgets that are not officially sanctioned by MySpace. Facebook, a competitor to MySpce, has opened its API which allows programmers to develop programs and widgets around the Facebook service.

What do you think about the Facebook/MySpace debate?

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