Jargon Busting

[Owen Stephens]

Following a suggestion by Edith, this is a forum to post 'jargon' and hopefully get an explanation. Just post the word/phrase you want explaining or reply to one already posted with an explanation.

[Edith Speller]

RESTful - I remember this coming up at last year's Mashed Library but don't think I ever twigged what it meant...

[Owen Stephens]

Start with the difficult stuff!

I don't claim to be an expert in this, and from what I do understand it isn't easy to give a straightforward definition without getting into even more jargon.

In terms of real word RESTful systems you'll find that they treat everything as a URL (actually a URI), and use http methods to manipulate them - http methods are things like GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE.

REST contrasts with an alternative approach called RPC (Remote Procedure Call) - SOAP is an example of this.

If this is now as clear as mud, I'd recommend having a look at this Google video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCcAE2SCQ6k&feature=related

[Joy Palmer]

Ok, here's my starter for ten. Not only a definition, but something that non-tecchies would understand. Why should we care about these?

APIs
RESTful
linked data
RDF
M2M
('Open' data, Open APIs Open Access, Open everything)

Not sure if it will come up, but 'business model' is another term that's being thrown around hugely right now.