What does creating an API on the Internet mean?

Question

I have a site created in ASP.NET MVC that uses heavy interaction with the jQuery client to create an interactive chat. Many users parsed javascript and found the URLs it posted to interact with the chat. They began to create bots for entertainment, to play games in chat channels.

These users continue to request an “API” to simplify the code for them. I thought I knew what the API was, but I think I'm still a little fuzzy. Not an API that a third party can interact with?

What does it mean to create a web API for my site? Is it just a document with a list of URLs and how to interact with them?

I also heard about web services and web links. Who are they? What does creating a web service mean? Does this have anything to do with the API on the web?

Answer 1

API, , " ". , , . URL- API-. , , , , , API, , , API-, , , .

-API - , -, - - . " " . . , , . , - .

- - , , , , , API, - .

URL- - , , -API. - API (, , OAuth, , , Twitter), , JSON . API, , "" - - API, , !

Answer 2

API - . , javascript URL-, , , URL .

API, - URL-, , , . , , , , .

, / , , , ( HTML, ) - , "", "", " " ..

Answer 3

, ASP.NET MVC. , " " " ". , .

Answer 4

URL-, , , .

"-api" POST CGI GET HTML, XML json .

!

Answer 5

, , API, ( , "" API).

"", , , , , , , , "" , .