cache control

In a REST application, it’s often the case that several clients might interact with a single resource, each holding a copy of the resources state. At any point in time, these client’s understanding of resource state may differ from each other or from the server. Without some way of realigning resource state, changes requested by a client based on an out-of-date understanding of resource may have undesired effects, from repeating computationally expensive requests to overwriting and losing another client’s changes....

The web supports a global network of billions of devices and users, and a key component of this support is effectively caching frequently accessed data along the request-response path. One of the key benefits in adopting a REST architectural style for your system is being able to leverage this existing infrastructure, taking advantage of the billions of dollars of investment already made in the web, and promoting loose coupling, performance and scalability....