HTTP and REST

HTTP is the protocol that powers the worldwide web. It stands for Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol. It’s a text-based request-response protocol. Because it is text-based, the protocol itself is human-readable (data payloads, which can be binary, may not be). It was originally designed for accessing documents across the Internet, but it has become a ubiquitous protocol-not just for web browsers, but for all kinds of computer-to-computer interactions. Subsequently, HTTP and “web technology” have become the substrate of choice for many kinds of interactions thanks to common-place open source software components and a range of hardware components that make it possible to build and deploy HTTP-based systems with ease and at great scale.

REST, which stands for REpresentational State Transfer, is based on HTTP. It defines constraints and conventions on top of HTTP that are intended to provide global interoperability and potential for scalability. A key architecture...