what is API and how to use that here ?

[saranyahcl]

hi all,
Please, some one tell me clearly what is PAI and how to take that and how to work with that ?
FIrst of all, please explain working with API’s…

thanks,
saranya

[escada]

API=application programming interface, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_programming_interface
If you have any programming experience at all, you probably know what it is. If not, you probably do not need an API

Or do you want to know which API’s are offered by OSM ?

[saranyahcl]

ok. I got it. set of codes, we can call it as API’s. right ?
fine, where shall I get OSM API’s.

thanks,
saranya

[mmd]

Please work through this Wiki page and come up with more specific questions if needed: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Develop

Also, highly recommend to do some mapping upfront to get familiar with the OSM data model. Otherwise working with the API will most likely be an unpleasant experience. See http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contribute_map_data

[OverThere]

With a half century plus of programming experience and about a year less in operating system level support to all levels of users, questions such as this were a common occurrence. Included were two decades in a massively multi-human-language (about 90) and multi-computer-language environment (about 30).

To answer the original first question, an API is like a human language, which can be embedded in a number of media, for example, (sound, visual (printing and sign), and tactile (Braille). It is a means of communication with a specific vocabulary and grammar written in a specific computer language. (An aside, an Application Binary Interface (ABI) is a Application Programming Interface using a specific computer architecture as a language.)

To answer the original second question, it is like learning any language, it takes frequent, purposeful practice. Unless, you have relevant and closely related, transferable experience, it can take thousands of hours of practice.

A problem with APIs with multiple implementations is that those implementations easily become dialects.

It is a misfortune for Anglo-American friendship that the two countries are supposed to have a common language. A Frenchman in America is not expected to talk like an American, but an Englishman speaking his mother tongue is thought to be affected and giving himself airs. Or else he is taken for a German or a Dutchman, and is complimented on his grammatical mastery of the language of another nation.
Bertrand Russell, “Can Americans and Britons Be Friends?”, Saturday Evening Post, 3 June 1944.

To help you (saranyahcl), it helps for us to know what it is that you are trying to do. But, you still have much work to do.

[escada]

saranyahcl, it might also help that you explain what you want to achieve with OpenStreetMap.