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REST Introduction

24 pointspulsarpietro12 comments

Does anybody know a short introduction to REST APIs ? I know HTTP reasonably well (it is not that complicated after all, I dare to say) and I need to know specifically what REST is about. I understand that being ignorant on the matter does not help in selecting a good source, but I've found all books (PDFs) on the internet excessively long, 300 pages+. Is it me overlooking the topic - because I don't know what I am talking about - or are they truly excessive ?

Any recommendations ?

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https://pages.apigee.com/rs/apigee/images/api-design-ebook-2...

Microsoft has a decent document regarding REST API design[1]. The main gist is, HTTP Verbs tell the application what to do with the object the URI Path points to.

1: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/best-pra...

If you wish to see everything in one single doc page.

https://github.com/Microsoft/api-guidelines/blob/vNext/Guide...

Thanks all, this is probably a very good starting point

I strongly recommend Designing Web APIs: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920123880.do

You can jump ahead to the Representational State Transfer chapter to get a good overview of REST, then read whichever chapters seem interesting or solve whichever problems you're facing.

Can't find that chapter here: https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Web-APIs-Building-Developer...

am I looking at a the right edition ?

Sorry, it's under Chapter 2. API Paradigms / Request-Response APIs / Representational State Transfer

There's two kinds of REST. REST as most developers misunderstand it, and REST as Roy Fielding, inventor of REST, understands it.

For the former you can read the Microsoft REST guidelines, for the latter I suggest getting Mike Amundsen's RESTful Web APIs book.

If you do go with the latter be prepared for a lot of frustration with those who went with the former.

Can you explain what is wrong with most people's implementation of rest?

https://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/rest-apis-must-be-hypert...

and https://8thlight.com/blog/jason-desrosiers/2018/05/30/the-hy... if you are wondering what that means

Check this site https://restfulapi.net/ It has information about RESTful API Designs, HATEOAS, Caching, Compression, etc. Very useful

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