Revisiting HTTP's request-response model and RESTCONF principles
When Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, published the first drafts for HTTP, the protocol that would become the cornerstone of the World Wide Web (WWW), he probably did not expect the way his idea would develop. Started as a way for scientists to exchange their findings and collaborate on particle physics, life today could not be envisioned without the web.
In this section, we are going to revisit the basics of how HTTP works and have a specific look at how RESTCONF uses the ideas and building blocks defined by HTTP to model the configuration state and changes thereof of a network device. If you are already very familiar with the HTTP protocol itself, you may want to skip the next section and jump straight to the How RESTCONF builds on top of HTTP subsection of this recipe.