REpresentational State Transfer (REST)

REST is basically a design philosophy for the Web. It was formally introduced by Roy Fielding as a way to explain what made the Web so successful, especially in terms of its simplicity and scalability. REST has recently resurfaced due to the current XML boom. With new technologies like XML-RPC, SOAP, etc. coming down the pipeline, REST advocates are working to ensure that these technologies embrace and use what REST has to offer.

To see what REST is all about, check out the following links. Over time, I hope to augment this information with my own contributions, musings, etc. In the meantime, though...

• Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures : This is the dissertation that started it all. Chapter 5 discusses REST specifically.
• RESTwiki : This is a wikiwiki dedicated to REST. It contains quite a bit of good information on the topic.
• Tutorial Slideshow : Written by Roger Costello. Provides a good introduction.
• Common REST Mistakes : Often, one learns better by making mistakes. This is a list of common mistakes to keep in mind in your own work.
• rest-discuss : This is a YahooGroup for discussing introductory concepts in REST. There is also another group that goes with it called rest-explore, which is intended for more focused, implementation-specific discussions (and is much less used).
• Axioms of Web Architecture : This is an informal set of comments by Tim Berners-Lee about how URIs should and should not be used. Parts of this come up frequently in discussions of REST.

If you have any other links that you think should be on this list, please e-mail them to me.