Last Update : April 15, 2013

Representational state transfer (REST) is a style of software architecture for distributed hypermedia systems such as the World Wide Web. The terms were introduced in 2000 in the doctoral dissertation of Roy T. Fielding, one of the principal authors of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) specification.

REST strictly refers to a collection of network architecture principles which outline how resources are defined and addressed. The term is often used in a looser sense to describe any simple interface which transmits domain-specific data over HTTP without an additional messaging layer such as SOAP or session tracking via HTTP cookies. The difference between the uses of the term “REST” therefore causes some confusion in technical discussions.

Systems which follow Fielding’s REST principles are often referred to as “RESTful”.

The claimed benefits of REST are listed in the the free encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Additional informations about REST are available at the following links :

• A Brief Introduction to REST, by Stefan Tilkov