REST APIs
Representational State Transfer (REST) is an architectural style for designing networked applications. It has gained popularity due to its simplicity and the use of standard HTTP methods, which are understood by most developers. Let us learn about the design principles, use cases, and strengths and weaknesses of REST APIs.
Design principles of REST APIs
REST APIs are built around resources, which are any kind of object, data, or service that can be accessed by the client. A resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), and the API interacts with these resources using HTTP methods such as GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, and others. These methods correspond to create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations in database systems.
A key feature of REST is its statelessness. Each request from a client to a server must contain all the information needed to understand and process the request. This makes the server’s operations more predictable and reliable as it doesn’t need to retain any context between requests. Let us now look at the use cases of REST APIs.
Use cases for REST APIs
REST APIs are particularly suitable for public APIs exposed over the internet. Their use of HTTP protocol makes them easily consumable by any client that can send HTTP requests. This includes web browsers, mobile applications, and other servers.
REST APIs are also a good fit for CRUD-based operations where the system is primarily dealing with entities that need to be created, read, updated, or deleted. For example, a web application that manages a list of users or products can benefit from a RESTful API design. Let us look at the strengths and weaknesses of REST APIs.
Strengths and weaknesses
REST APIs are simple to understand and use. They leverage HTTP’s built-in methods and status codes, making them intuitive for developers familiar with HTTP. However, REST APIs can be less efficient for complex operations that require multiple requests to complete. They also use JSON for data exchange, which can be verbose and lead to larger payloads.
In the next section, we will explore gRPC APIs, a different approach to building APIs that can address some of the limitations of REST. By understanding both REST and gRPC, you will be better equipped to choose the right approach for your specific use case.
