REST API Basics

So, what's a REST API and what do we use them for?

Lecture material

• rest-api-basics.pdf
• rest-api-basics.pptx

Recommended reading

• Working with Web APIs by Launch School:
  • Getting Started
    • (you do not need to install HTTPie)
  • API basics
  • Working with an API
• Web API Design - Crafting Interfaces that Developers Love from Apigee:
  • Until (including) page 22
• Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures by Roy Thomas Fielding:
  • CHAPTER 5: Representational State Transfer (REST)
    (feel free to read the other chapters as well)
• Roy Fielding's Misappropriated REST Dissertation
  (optional reading for those who think Roy's dissertation is too hard to read)
• The Rise and Rise of JSON from Two-Bit History
  (optional reading for those who want to learn the history of JSON)