How does API work?

Message

oriel · #1 Post by **oriel** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 8:07 am

Hi,

I know this is the "Game Making Forum" but I had to ask this question to programmers around because I've gone far enough into programming VB and this is something I've never been able to find a straight answer to.

Anyhow, when I was in junior high school, I had this friend who was a whiz at VB. He would make third party programs for AOL, but would make programs that would cause nuissance to other users (like bomb them with a hundred IM's, create requests for people to receive illegal software in their mail box, report a user to AOL security, etc). A "prog" if that term is still valid.

So anyways, I'm curious to how this works, and why don't people make it for AOL anymore.

Thx,
Oriel

moonlit · #2 Post by **moonlit** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 7:03 pm

Hi,

Well if this is a serious question (which I have doubts about). An API (application program interface) is a set of routines that allow you perform a something (yes pretty generic definition).

More practical. Say I want to send you a thousand emails to really piss you off using ms-windows. I could just open outlook express and start typing or I could create a program that ask the windows OS to create an com object that implements the mail engine (of course I can only ask for something that exists i.e. microsoft or someoneelse should have programmed such an com object (such an object does in fact exist))

Now programmatically I would call a number of functions to set sender, receiver, subject and body of the message. Then in a loop I would do this a few thousand times.

A few hours later I would be arrested, my ISP canceled my account and I have to pay for the damage I did. Then I realize it would have been more fun to spent that time on something people enjoy instead of annoy and all would be better of if I would have spent my time on creating games.

Regards, Ron AF Greve

oriel · #3 Post by **oriel** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 1:16 am

moonlit wrote:Hi,

Well if this is a serious question (which I have doubts about).

It's serious.

moonlit wrote:More practical. Say I want to send you a thousand emails to really piss you off using ms-windows. I could just open outlook express and start typing or I could create a program that ask the windows OS to create an com object that implements the mail engine (of course I can only ask for something that exists i.e. microsoft or someoneelse should have programmed such an com object (such an object does in fact exist))

Now programmatically I would call a number of functions to set sender, receiver, subject and body of the message. Then in a loop I would do this a few thousand times.

Thanks.

moonlit wrote: A few hours later I would be arrested, my ISP canceled my account and I have to pay for the damage I did. Then I realize it would have been more fun to spent that time on something people enjoy instead of annoy and all would be better of if I would have spent my time on creating games.

Tell that to your mom.

Angelus3K · #4 Post by **Angelus3K** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 7:32 am

oriel wrote:
moonlit wrote: A few hours later I would be arrested, my ISP canceled my account and I have to pay for the damage I did. Then I realize it would have been more fun to spent that time on something people enjoy instead of annoy and all would be better of if I would have spent my time on creating games.
Tell that to your mom.

Was that really necessary?

Quest For Glory Fan · #5 Post by **Quest For Glory Fan** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 5:48 pm

I was just thinking the same thing