2003-07-16

Permanent link Building Web Services the REST Way

Roger L. Costello: "Here are the characteristics of REST:

  • Client-Server: a pull-based interaction style: consuming components pull representations.
  • Stateless: each request from client to server must contain all the information necessary to understand the request, and cannot take advantage of any stored context on the server.
  • Cache: to improve network efficiency responses must be capable of being labeled as cacheable or non-cacheable.
  • Uniform interface: all resources are accessed with a generic interface (e.g., HTTP GET, POST, PUT, DELETE).
  • Named resources - the system is comprised of resources which are named using a URL.
  • Interconnected resource representations - the representations of the resources are interconnected using URLs, thereby enabling a client to progress from one state to another.
  • Layered components - intermediaries, such as proxy servers, cache servers, gateways, etc, can be inserted between clients and resources to support performance, security, etc."

Filed under: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 06:01:53 +0200 [Edit]