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Comment by proaralyst | Hacker News Reader

Rest doesn't mean Json, just that communication is stateless. HTTP itself is a Rest API.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfe...

I never said anything about JSON. REST (in HTTP's case) is about a) identifying resources (instead of, say, operations) by URIs and b) effecting state changes on those resources using HTTP verbs.

    HTTP/1.1 GET /foo/deleteWidget.asp?id=1234

is not REST (but such things were and are still common)

    HTTP/1.1 DELETE /foo/widgets/1234

is.

If a Web service where you can execute database queries by passing raw SQL as a GET parameter (I really hope the database has its permissions set properly, otherwise holy SQL injection, Batman!) is a REST API then every Web service that has ever existed is a REST API and the term is completely meaningless.

Edit: A doc link from another comment shows that they do have an actual REST API: http://www.sciserver.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/CasJobs_...

"every Web service that has ever existed is a REST API and the term is completely meaningless."

Yes, the term is completely meaningless. In the strictest sense that some people insist on there appears to be 0 "real" REST APIs in the world. In the loose sense, as you say, everything is a REST API. I've really never seen a definition of "REST API" that usefully splits the world of HTTP-based APIs into "REST" and "not REST" that anyone is willing to stick with; the term seems to beg for people to start a purity spiral that ends with whatever supposed REST API was being held up as an example of a REST API turning out to violate some tenant or other of "real REST".

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