12. Summary: REST in One Line
If I had to summarize REST: "Applying the web's success formula to APIs".
- Resources as URIs (nouns)
- Actions as HTTP methods (verbs)
- Results communicated via status codes (traffic lights)
- Stateless servers enable scaling (simplicity)
- Caching improves performance (efficiency)
My first API was terrible. But by learning REST principles, making mistakes, and fixing them, I learned a crucial lesson:
An API isn't just "a data pipeline" — it's a product for others to use. And that product's quality is determined by its design.
REST taught me that.