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Quick Answer

REST is a way of producing and consuming web APIs. It tends to be simpler and easier to work with than other API methodologies (such as SOAP). It seeks improved scalability, performance, and client-server independence.

Digging Deeper

REST is an acronym for Representational State Transfer. This Wikipedia article offers a good primer on the subject but for those who want to go right to the source material, read Chapter 5 of Dr. Roy Fielding's dissertation. There are numerous web articles and vlogs and the web that discuss various REST topics. This article will focus on what REST means to the SRP HTTP Framework.

At a high-level, REST is simply a way of producing and consuming web APIs. In this regard, it is no different from other web API methodologies (generally known as RPC or remote procedure call) such as SOAP or XML-RPC. They all communicate with web servers using URLs and HTTP. Contrary to conventional thinking, REST is not a standard . Rather, but it does point to other standards (e.g., HTTP). REST attempts to describe a philosophy of building web APIs using six different constraints:

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