Resource

tags

HTTP

REST Resource #

A resource is anything that’s important enough to be referenced as a thing in itself with a URL.

• If your users might
  • “want to create a hypertext link to it,
  • make or refute assertions about it,
  • retrieve or cache a representation of it,
  • include all or part of it by reference into another representation,
  • annotate it, or perform other operations on it”, then you should make it a resource.

Usually, a resource is something that can be stored on a computer and represented as a stream of bits:

1. a document,
2. a row in a database, or
3. the result of running an algorithm.

A resource may be a physical object like an apple, or an abstract concept like courage, but (as we’ll see later) the representations of such resources are bound to be disappointing. Here are some possible resources:

URL

Observation #

Nouns in the digital or Internet world.