Pragmatic REST

REpresentational State Transfer (REST) is a style of software architecture for distributed systems introduced and defined in 2000 by Roy Fielding in his doctoral dissertation, that has increasingly displaced other design models such as SOAP, due to its simplicity.

I label this building block as “Pragmatic REST” to avoid the common responses from the community about what is truly REST. I encourage you to read Roy Fielding’s dissertation, buy books like APIs: A Strategy Guide and participate in communities like API Craft--then form your own vision of what REST is, to meet your business objectives.

REST’s success lies in its simplicity, but is born out of very heated, ongoing and complex discussions around its design. When planning the design of your API, focus on the the simplicity, and what is important to your company. Don’t listen to the haters, there will always be someone who will criticize you for your design.