I Didn't "Get" APIs Until I Built One

Reading about them didn't work. Watching tutorials didn't help. Building one changed everything.

Let me tell you the truth:

I watched every API tutorial out there.
I knew what "GET" and "POST" were on paper.
I memorized what REST stood for.
I nodded along when someone said "CRUD."

But deep down?
I didn't get APIs.
I didn't understand what they were actually doing,
Until I built one.

The Moment It Clicked

It was the moment I wrote a backend route like this:

Then in my React app, I hit that route with a fetch() request.

And boom, the backend responded, and the frontend updated.

That was it. That was the magic moment.

I stopped seeing APIs as some "senior dev" concept.
I saw them for what they are:
A conversation between two parts of your app.

What I Learned By Building One

✅ How requests actually move through your app
✅ How to send & receive JSON
✅ Why error handling matters
✅ How CORS works (and how painful it can be 😅)
✅ What a real "fullstack" app looks like when it's connected

Suddenly, I wasn't just building frontends that looked nice —
I was building apps that worked like real software.

Your Reminder

You don't need to understand everything about APIs before you build one.
You understand it by doing it.

Start with:

1. One backend route
2. One frontend form
3. Connect them
4. Watch your app talk to itself

That's when it'll click.