The Two Main Guiding Principles of REST

AC.

The two main guiding principles of REST are stateless and cacheable.

1. Stateless: REST (Representational State Transfer) is designed to be stateless. This means that each request from a client to a server must contain all the necessary information for the server to fulfill the request. The server does not keep any session state, which means that every request from a client is treated as a new request, independent of any previous requests. This makes REST APIs highly scalable, as each request can be processed independently without any dependency on the previous requests.

2. Cacheable: REST APIs are designed to be cacheable. This means that responses from a server can be cached by the client, and subsequent requests can be satisfied from the cache instead of going to the server. This improves the performance of REST APIs, as the server does not have to process duplicate requests, and the client does not have to wait for the server to respond. To enable caching, REST APIs use HTTP cache headers that control how long a response can be cached and how it can be cached.

The other options listed are not the main guiding principles of REST:

• Trackable: Although REST APIs can provide tracking information through response headers, it is not one of the main guiding principles.
• Single-layer system: REST APIs can be implemented in a layered architecture, with each layer providing different functionalities, so it is not a guiding principle.
• Stateful: As mentioned above, REST is designed to be stateless, so stateful interactions are not a guiding principle of REST.