Basics of REST

Representational State Transfer (REST) is an architectural style for creating web services. REST is not a standard, but it defines a set of constraints defined by Roy Fielding. The six constraints are as follows:

• Stateless: The server doesn't hold any information about the client state.
• Client: The client and server act independently. The server does not send any information without a request from the client.
• Cacheable: Many clients often request the same resources; therefore, it is useful to cache responses in order to improve performance.
• Uniform interface: Requests from different clients look the same. Clients may include, for example, a browser, a Java application, and a mobile application.
• Layered system: REST allows us to use a layered system architecture.
• Code on demand: This is an optional constraint.

The uniform interface is an important constraint, and it means that every REST architecture should have the following elements:

• Identification of resources...