<p><pre><code>  &gt;  ELI5 for a non-developer?
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There are multiple ways of putting multiple computers together. We call those ways &quot;architectures.&quot; This guy named Fielding wrote a dissertation where he describes a number of different properties of different architectures.<p>In chapter 5, he describes a particular set of properties, for a particular family of architectures, and calls them &quot;REST&quot;.<p>Years later, a whole ton of people misunderstand all this and call all sorts of other things REST.<p>Confusion abounds.