What’s REST?
Representational State Transfer (REST) – Meaningless Acronym? Wordplay?
rest – n. – peace, ease, or refreshment resulting from the insight that the web works
No matter what vendors tell you – no need to “Light Up the Web” – relax – built on an open architecture using universal identifiers, formats & protocols and evolving open standards – no need to reinvent the wheel and sign-up for single-vendor offerings.
What’s REST? (Cont’d)
Narrow Definition
Alternative to BigCo Web Services:
- SOAP
- WS-*)1 and
- RPC-Style Web Services (XML-RPC)
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Broad Definition
Best Practices for Designing Web Services for a Unified Human and Programable Web
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1 WS-* = Web Service Specs including WS-Transfer, WS-Addressing, WS-Eventing,
WS-Security, WS-Federation, WS-Trust, and many more.