Writing Beautiful RESTful APIs

Git is a distributed version control system that records the history of a set of files as a graph of snapshots, lets many people work on branches of that history at once, and merges their work back together.

HTTP is the request-and-response protocol of the web: a client sends a method, a path and headers, a server answers with a status code, headers and a body, and each exchange stands alone unless the two sides agree to carry state in a header.

A REST API exposes an application's data as resources at stable addresses and lets clients read and change them with HTTP's standard methods and status codes, so that the protocol itself carries most of the meaning.

SSL/TLS is the protocol that encrypts the connection between a browser and a server and, by way of a certificate signed by a certificate authority, proves the server is entitled to answer for the domain in the address bar.

A domain name is an address in the internet's public namespace that you rent through a registrar for a yearly fee, and it remains yours only while the registrar account holding it stays paid up and under your own control.

Caching keeps the result of expensive work, such as a rendered page or a database query, and serves that stored copy until it expires, making it the largest single source of speed on any busy website.