Every backend job, whether at a bank in Accra, a telco or a remote startup, involves HTTP. When a payment fails or an app shows an error, the first question a senior developer asks is "what request was sent, and what came back?" Being able to answer that makes you useful from your first week.
Requests and responses
HTTP is a set of rules for a client and a server to talk. The client sends a request and the server sends back a response. A request has:
- a method, which says what you want to do:
GETto read,POSTto create,PUTorPATCHto change,DELETEto remove - a URL, which says what you are talking about, such as
/orders/42 - headers, extra information such as the type of content or a login token