What exactly is RESTful programming?

Question

What exactly is RESTful programming?

Answer 1

REST is using the various HTTP methods (mainly GET/PUT/DELETE) to manipulate data.

Rather than using a specific URL to delete a method (say, /user/123/delete), you would send a DELETE request to the /user/[id] URL, to edit a user, to retrieve info on a user you send a GET request to /user/[id]

For example, instead a set of URLs which might look like some of the following..

GET /delete_user.x?id=123
GET /user/delete
GET /new_user.x
GET /user/new
GET /user?id=1
GET /user/id/1

You use the HTTP "verbs" and have..

GET /user/2
DELETE /user/2
PUT /user