REST, or Representational State Transfer, is the ubiquitous architectural style that answers the pivotal question: how will web servers and clients communicate? Of all the acronyms floating around the world of software engineering, REST is one of the most common. It is also one of the most frequently misunderstood. This article offers a quick guide to REST in both theory and practice. In other words, we’ll look at both the theory of REST and how it is actually implemented, which is mostly in the form of RESTful APIs.
REST in theory
Building software to be distributed on the Internet entails an inherent degree of complexity. The TCP/IP and HTTP stack gives us a basic mechanism for exchanging data over the wire, but the protocols end there. Software developers have had to devise our own higher-level approaches for organizing how resources will be packaged and distributed via web applications.
To read this article in full, please click here
InfoWorld
