How I explained REST to my rubber duck (1/2)
A simple and inexact rough explanation of REST
REST is a set of rules for building a web service, which, according to its author (Roy Fielding in his dissertation), will imbue a service with certain benefits. The primary benefit being that the service can be changed at any time without the need to notify clients.
This is achieved primarily by all possible options of the web service being discoverable through one url (web address) which is the service's entry point. A client requests the information represented by that url, which the service responds with. Any available options of the service at that point will be included in the service's response in the form of hyperlinks which link to additional urls. Requesting those urls will return the next available options as more urls. And so on and so forth.
How I explained REST to my rubber duck (2/2) - Expansion