Small Talk :: WCF :: RESTful service basics

I came across one question too many times on multiple websites and from multiple persons -
"What is REST and RESTful service?" or "Please tell me how to define RESTful service?" or "What is the significance of RESTful service?"

So, I have decided to write this post and believe this will clear the air about the basic understanding of RESTful service.

Here we go:

• REST stands for Representational State Transfer.
• RESTful service says that any service should be treated as a RESOURCE and it should be available and be accessible using simple HTTP binding.
• It says that any operations that we perform on database are resource operations. So, RESTful service should also be able operate in the same manner.
• Thus, all the CRUD operations, called the VERBS- that is actions should be performed using the REST.
• So they are – GET(), POST(), PUT(), DELETE().

What next? Think about ODATA services? .... sure, will take this up too for the benefit of all of us here, in the next post. Happy Coding!!!