How to work with the C# API?

Question

API

Completely confused how to work with API with different resources. Help me to understand. Someone directly accesses the API and receives information using GET requests. Others via ASP.net web api & MVC. What does this mean and what are these web api& MVC for?
How to work with the API? From different sites and what is needed for this?

Answer 1

In a broad sense, an API is a programming interface.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/API
To simplify as much as possible, this is a set of functions that someone has developed for you and "put it out", and you, in turn, in the case of, for example, Web Api can call them via http request and get the result in response.
Just in http there is such a thing as GET and POST requests. Read the wiki for more details on http. In general, I advise you to read the literature on networks. And how they are arranged. At least about the TCP / IP stack.
ASP.net Web Api is already a specific solution for a specific .NET framework. With it, you can develop Web API yourself. But not necessarily. Web Api can be written in python, PHP and even js.
MVC is a design pattern. Model View Controller. It is not related to Web Api in any way, but microsoft has a ready-made implementation of this pattern as an asp.net project template and is called the same. With it, you can, for example, develop SPA applications that provide / use the Web API.