REST is best described by the original paper. There are many other ways to describe it.
I like to think of the basic idea of REST as CRUD over HTTP. Think about how you interact with a database and move that abstraction out to a service level. Instead of doing things like "sign in", "leave group", "down vote entry" you instead "create session", "delete membership", "update entry". That's the key concept.
I like to think of the basic idea of REST as CRUD over HTTP. Think about how you interact with a database and move that abstraction out to a service level. Instead of doing things like "sign in", "leave group", "down vote entry" you instead "create session", "delete membership", "update entry". That's the key concept.