Before getting into the details of REST, let's look at an example. With a client, in this case, a web browser, and a server, the client sends a request to the server over HTTP for some models as follows:

The server will then respond with a document containing all the models.

The client can then modify the data on the server through a PUT HTTP request:

Then the server will respond that it has modified the data. This is a very simplified example, but it will serve as a backdrop to how REST is defined.

Rather than a strict standard, REST lays out a set of constraints on communications to define a methodology that can be implemented in many ways. These constraints are born out of years of trial and error with other communication protocols, such as Remote Procedure Call (RPC) or Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). These protocols fell by the wayside due to their strictness, verboseness, and the difficulty in creating APIs with them. The issues with these systems were identified, and...