In this blog post, I’ll share my thoughts on an article I read titled “What is a REST API?” from Cleo’s blog. This article dives into the concept of REST APIs (Representational State Transfer), and after reading it, I feel like I now have a much clearer understanding of how REST APIs work and why they’re so important in modern web development. This topic ties directly into our web development course, where we’re learning about web services and how to connect different systems.

The article explains what REST APIs are and why they are widely used. It starts by explaining the core principles of REST, such as statelessness and resource-based URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers). In simple terms, REST APIs allow different software systems to communicate over the internet by sending requests (like GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) to a server, where each request is independent and contains all the necessary information to be processed. The article also discusses the scalability and flexibility of REST APIs, which make them a popular choice for building web applications that need to handle a large number of users or integrate with other services.

I chose this article because I’ve heard the term “REST API” thrown around in class and in tech articles, but I never fully understood how they work. As a computer science beginner, I often find myself struggling to grasp concepts like APIs and how they fit into the bigger picture of web development. Since we’re covering APIs and web services in our course, I figured reading a simple, clear article would help me solidify my understanding of this important topic.

After reading the article, I feel much more confident about my understanding of REST APIs. Before, I knew APIs were used to transfer data between different applications, but I didn’t fully understand how REST APIs specifically work. The article’s explanation of statelessness was particularly eye-opening to me. I had no idea that each request in a REST API is self-contained, meaning it doesn’t rely on any prior interactions to be processed. This makes sense when you think about how web applications need to be scalable and efficient—keeping things stateless helps ensure the server isn’t overloaded with unnecessary data.

Another thing I found interesting was the explanation of how RESTful APIs use HTTP methods (like GET and POST) to interact with resources. It made me realize how intuitive and flexible REST is for creating services that can easily be integrated with other software systems. I now feel much more comfortable working with APIs.

I want to explore more advanced topics, like authentication and error handling, which the article briefly touched on. This will help me build more secure and reliable web applications.

Resource:

https://www.cleo.com/blog/blog-knowledge-base-what-is-rest-api

From the blog Computer Science From a Basketball Fan by Brandon Njuguna and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.