When it comes to building software solutions that are meant to interact with (or be used by) other software, there two software programming concepts that are usually contemplated; SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and REST (Representational State Transfer). SOAP has been relied upon a lot longer while REST is like the new kid on the block.
SOAP AND REST HANDLES REQUESTS
SOAP is a protocol that allows different programs using different software programming to communicate with one another and share data. REST was designed to assist majorly with sharing files and multimedia documents (however, it can share data).
SOAP is a protocol while REST is an architecture. REST has become the new favorite as it is lighter and consumes less bandwidth which makes it more scalable. A lot of web solutions we access on a daily basis uses RESTful services. There are HTTP verbs that are used to interact with RESTful services such as; GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE.
POPULAR HTTP REQUESTS AND WHAT THEY DO
GET is used when you want to obtain information or items from the database eg. when you're searching for a person on Hashnode. POST is used when you want to create a new item eg. commenting or posting new content (like I am currently doing with this post) on Hashnode.
PUT is no longer advised, however, it was created to update an entire block of information (it only works when you're updating ALL details) eg. when you want to update your entire user details (which we hardly ever do nor are we allowed to do on most platforms).
PATCH is used when you want to change some details but not necessarily all details (this has replaced PUT) because it's more practical as there are times you want to change your email address, phone number, or house address rather than your entire details. DELETE is fairly obvious, you use this request to delete things like comments, posts, etc.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Every time you perform operations on the web, these are the requests that are being sent on your behalf to the database. There are APIs (Application Programming Interface) that are created to wait for each type of request, act on it, and return feedback that your browsers will process and show you.
In a way, RESTful services are always resting till you call upon them to act. As a developer having an understanding of this is key and learning how to build these services are also important to building scalable applications