As a developer, I'm always looking for ways to improve my workflow and make my job easier. Recently, I heard about Postman, a popular tool for testing and documenting APIs, and I decided to give it a try. I started with Postman 101, a basic course that covers the fundamentals of using Postman. In this post, I'll share my experience with Postman 101 and what I learned from the course.

Introduction to Postman

At the beginning of the course, we learned about what Postman is and why it's useful. We also went through the process of downloading and installing Postman on our computers. As someone who had never used Postman before, I appreciated the clear and concise introduction to the tool.

Creating and Sending Requests

One of the main features of Postman is the ability to create and send requests to APIs. Postman 101 taught us about the different types of requests that can be sent, such as GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. We also learned how to add headers and parameters to requests. The hands-on exercises were especially helpful in solidifying my understanding of these concepts.

Authorization

Authorization is an important part of API testing and documentation, and Postman 101 covered this topic in detail. We learned how to set up authorization in Postman, including basic authentication, OAuth, and API keys. I found this section of the course to be especially useful, as it's an area that I had struggled with in the past.

Responses

After sending a request, we receive a response from the API. Postman 101 taught us how to view and interpret responses from APIs in Postman, and how to use the response data to test and document APIs. I appreciated the emphasis on using the response data to inform our testing and documentation efforts.

Collections and Environments

Two features that I found particularly useful in Postman were collections and environments. Collections allow you to organize requests into groups, while environments let you manage variables and settings for different environments (e.g. development, production). Postman 101 covered how to create and use collections and environments in Postman, which helped me to streamline my API testing and documentation workflow.

Testing and Documentation

Finally, Postman 101 covered how to write and run tests in Postman to ensure that APIs are working correctly, and how to use Postman to create API documentation that can be shared with other developers and stakeholders. These sections of the course were especially relevant to my work as a developer, and I appreciated the practical advice and examples.

Conclusion

Overall, my experience with Postman 101 was very positive. The course provided a solid foundation for using Postman to test and document APIs, and I feel much more confident using the tool now. I would highly recommend Postman 101 to anyone who is new to Postman or who wants to learn more about API testing and documentation.