What is REST?

REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style for designing web APIs. It's a set of principles for how web services should work, making APIs predictable and easy to use.

REST Principles:

• Stateless: Each request contains all information needed
• Resource-based: Everything is a resource (identified by URLs)
• HTTP methods: Use GET, POST, PUT, DELETE appropriately
• Uniform interface: Consistent way to interact with resources

RESTful API Design:

• GET /users: Retrieve list of users
• GET /users/123: Get user with ID 123
• POST /users: Create a new user
• PUT /users/123: Update user 123
• DELETE /users/123: Delete user 123

Why REST is Popular:

• Simple: Uses standard HTTP methods
• Stateless: Easy to scale horizontally
• Cacheable: Responses can be cached
• Standard: Works with any language or framework

REST vs Other Approaches:

• REST: Resource-based, uses HTTP methods
• GraphQL: Query-based, single endpoint
• RPC: Function-based, like calling methods