GET: get a thing from a place. PUT: put a thing in a place. POST: create a new place, put a thing there, and tell me its location. DELETE: delete the contents o

GET: get a thing from a place. PUT: put a thing in a place. POST: create a new place, put a thing there, and tell me its location. DELETE: delete the contents of an existing place. The biggest subtlety I can think of is deciding whether PUT to a place that doesn't exist is valid, and whether DELETE of a place should delete just the object or also the place too, if PUT is only valid for existing places. How to handle that subtlety is application dependent. Personally I like to architect RESTful services such that POST isn't necessary since it's hard to make it idempotent, but sometimes POST is the most comprehensible interface. Also, I wouldn't bother using REST at all unless I was going to make everything fully discoverable via hypertext[1]. However that's not to say there aren't soundly designed non-RESTful ways to use the HTTP application protocol. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HATEOAS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HATEOAS