http - What exactly does REST mean? What is it, and why is it getting big now?

Question

I understand (I think) the basic idea behind RESTful-ness. Use HTTP methods semantically - GET gets, PUT puts, DELETE deletes, etc... Right? thought I understood the idea behind REST, but I think I'm confusing that with the details of an HTTP implementation. What is the driving idea behind rest, why is this becoming an important thing? Have people actually been using it for a long time, in a corner of the internets that my flashlight never shined upon?

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The Google talk mentions Atom Publishing Protocols having a lot of synergy with RESTful implementations. Any thoughts on that?

Answer 1

This is what REST might look like:

POST /user
fname=John&lname=Doe&age=25

The server responds:

201 Created
Location: /user/123

In the future, you can then retrieve the user information:

GET /user/123

The server responds (assuming an XML response):

200 OK
<user><fname>John</fname><lname>Doe</lname><age>25</age></user>

To update:

PUT /user/123
fname=Johnny