An application programming interface, commonly abbreviated API, is a defined set of rules and protocols that lets one piece of software request services or data from another without either program needing to know the other's internal workings. The term dates to early computing literature describing how a program's own subroutines could be called by other programs, but the modern web API, delivered over the internet using protocols such as HTTP, emerged only around 2000, when companies including Salesforce and eBay began publishing interfaces that let outside developers build directly on their platforms, and computer scientist Roy Fielding's 2000 doctoral dissertation formalized the REST architectural style that became the dominant way such APIs are designed. Web APIs subsequently became the standard mechanism by which independent software systems, from mobile apps to cloud services, exchange data and functionality across the internet.
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