This overview should arm you with enough information to get started using REST APIs. Again, I strongly encourage you to check out the in-depth tutorial at rest.elkstein.org. Or if you just want to dive right in, there's excellent sample code available for many REST APIs. An easy way to get started is to work through the tutorials or get the example code functioning in your environment, then move on from there.
Once you're comfortable with REST APIs, they are a great way to add integration between your application and existing Web services. REST APIs not only share a consistent interface, but they invariably rely on HTTP; after you've used one, you're in great shape to try out others. REST's consistency and openness make it one of the easiest API types to work with. With the ability to inspect the traffic between the client and the server, developing and debugging REST integrations is made that much easier.
This article, "How-to: REST Web services demystified," originally appeared at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest news in programming at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.