The web app of the file_transfer_stub project was completely stateless, meaning that every operation had the same behavior independently of the previous operations. Other ways to explain this are that no data was kept from one command to the next, or that it computed pure functions only.
The web app of the file_transfer project had a state, but that state was confined to the filesystem. Such a state was the content of the data files. Nevertheless, the application itself was still stateless. No variable survived from one request handling to another request handling.
The REST principles are usually interpreted as prescribing that any API must be stateless. That is a misnomer because REST services can have a state, but they must behave as if they were stateless. To be stateless means that, except for the filesystem and the database, no information survives in the server from one request handling to another request handling. To behave as if stateless means that...
