Chapter 1. REST – What You Did Not Know

Nowadays, topics such as cloud computing and mobile device service feeds, as well as other data sources driven by cutting-edge, scalable, stateless, and modern technologies such as RESTful web services, leave the impression that REST was invented recently. Well, to be honest, it definitely was not! In fact, REST has been here since the end of the 20th century.

This chapter will walk you through REST's fundamental principles, and it will explain how REST couples with the HTTP protocol. You will look into the five key principles that need to be considered while turning an HTTP application into a RESTful-service-enabled application. You will also look at the differences in describing RESTful and classic SOAP-based web services. Finally, you will learn how to utilize already existing infrastructure for your benefit.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics: