`  ==Is JNI an API or no?==  The article reads at the first line, ``The Java Native Interface (JNI) is a programming framework...``  Then later on it states, ``as mentioned before, the JNI is not an easy API to learn.``  Is JNI properly referred to as an API?  I realize that API stands for ``application program interface`` which fairly describes JNI, but my understanding is that the term API usually refers to a hardware or operating system hook rather than a generic application-to-application communication pathway.  Just curious.  Thx.`