# Grokking the REST Architectural Style

By Ben Ramsey

- **Date:** June 12, 2009
- **Event:** Dutch PHP Conference
- **Venue:** Amsterdam RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre
- **City:** Amsterdam, Netherlands

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- [View slides](https://speakerdeck.com/ramsey/grokking-the-rest-architectural-style-dutch-php-2009)
- [Download PDF](https://files.benramsey.com/talks/2009/dpc/bramsey-grokking_rest-dpc09.pdf)
- [Read feedback](https://joind.in/talk/view/575)

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REST has become the hip, new buzzword of Web 2.0. But what makes an application RESTful? Pretty URLs? XML over HTTP? Any service that's not SOAP? In all the hype, the definition of REST has become clouded and diluted.

Forget what you thought you knew about REST. In this talk, Ben Ramsey reintroduces REST, placing it under a microscope, uncovering each constraint that forms REST's crucial principles. Ramsey explains how REST is a style for network-based software applications, emphasizing scalability and efficiency through separation of concerns and taking advantage of the Web as a platform for rich Internet applications.