Module 5: Backend Development & APIs
- Explain how an API handles a request and sends a response
- Understand common HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE)
- Design a simple RESTful endpoint
The backend is the part of an application a user never sees directly: it receives requests, applies business logic, talks to a database, and sends back a response. An API (Application Programming Interface) is the agreed contract for how the frontend asks the backend for something. You will learn the main HTTP methods: GET to retrieve data, POST to create something new, PUT or PATCH to update existing data, and DELETE to remove it, and practice designing RESTful endpoints, a widely used convention where a URL like /users/42 combined with a GET request returns user 42's data, while the same URL with DELETE removes that user.
1. In a RESTful API, a POST request to /orders would typically be used to:
2. Which HTTP method is conventionally used to retrieve data without changing anything on the server?
3. An API's primary role is to: