Introduction to APIs and MuleSoft

The world is changing. Technologies keep emerging. There are more needs for technology now than there used to be, and it’s not a coincidence. Earlier, there were simple problems and simple solutions: maybe not the best solutions, but they worked well enough for the needs at the time. Now, we are swamped with different technologies we can choose from to achieve the same goal. We are bombarded with new programming languages, frameworks, and methodologies. What was popular yesterday is obsolete today. How do we keep up?

Before, it was good enough to just have an engineering or computer science degree to be able to thrive in the Information Technology (IT) world. Now, you don’t necessarily need a degree, but you do need to understand the basic terminology or learn the appropriate logic required to create software. A lot of people think this is a skill you are born with, that you either have what it takes to understand programming algorithms and patterns or you’re doomed to never be able to work in IT. This is not true – especially nowadays, in the no-code/low-code era.

Today, we can find mobile applications that do our work for us. There are tools online to help us write, design, paint, sing, and build, even if that is not our strongest suit. Why would programming be any different? This is where technologies such as Salesforce and MuleSoft come into play. The simplicity they’re based on helps you to thrive in this environment even if you don’t come from an IT background.

In this chapter, we’re going to cover the following main topics:

• No-code and low-code technologies
• Integrations
• APIs
• MuleSoft’s products
• Application networks
• API-led connectivity approach

Let’s start by understanding the need for an integration tool.