Results of the Ultimate REST API Challenge

A few weeks ago, SmartBear Software launched the Ultimate REST API Challenge for two weeks. 

Spoiler alert! The answers to the eight-question quiz are below, with an explanation for each correct answer. The difficulty of each question varied, with only 49% of participants answering the most difficult question correctly, while 92% got the right answer on the easiest question.

If you would like to take the challenge to see how you stack up before seeing the answers, click here.

1. REST stands for

• Recode End State Transfer
• Reference State Transfer
• Representational State Transfer (77% answered this correctly!)
• Request State Transfer

REST stands for Representational State Transfer. While it is usually spelled in all caps, it is sometimes spelled as “ReST”.

2. Which one of these is NOT a method of REST?

• DELETE
• GET
• PUT
• STORE (90% answered this correctly!)          

STORE is not a method of REST. Only DELETE, GET, PATCH, PUT, and GET are methods of REST.

3. True or False: REST has fewer security risks than SOAP.

• True
• False (57% answered this correctly!)

This is false, as REST has more security risks than SOAP. Over the years, SOAP has added extensions to deal with transactional messaging specific security considerations. REST, on the other hand, does not implement any specific security patterns, mainly because the pattern focuses on how to deliver and consume data, not how to build in safety into the way you exchange data. 

4. What percent of all public APIs are REST APIs?

• 10%
• 30%
• 55%
• 70% (49% answered this correctly!)

While SOAP used to dominate the API space, 70 % of all public APIs are REST APIs.

5. True or False: The Foundation of REST API comes from a PhD student’s doctoral dissertation.

• True (81% answered this correctly!)
• False

Back in 2000, Roy Fielding presented his doctoral dissertation at University of California-Irvine on the representational state transfer and set the foundation for REST.

6. While SOAP is an API protocol, REST is merely a set of…

• Guidelines (92% answered this correctly!)
• Diagrams
• Letters
• Numbers

REST is not a protocol or standard. REST architecture is simply following certain guidelines for how a well-designed Web app behaves, in a logical organization that involves a series of links that then result in the next page for the user.

7. REST APIs would not work in which scenario?

• Reading information from a server or database
• A LinkedIn profile
• Big games like Call of Duty or World of Warcraft (76% answered this correctly!)
• Ordering information

REST APIs and APIs in general would never work for the big games like Call of Duty or World of Warcraft, where there’s a real-time voice chat system among the players based anywhere in the world. These games avoid APIs like the plague, going for really fast and compressed binary data dumps that allow for real-time data transfer, not waiting for API calls. protocol or standard. REST architecture is simply following certain guidelines for how a well-designed Web app behaves, in a logical organization that involves a series of links that then result in the next page for the user.

8. Which one of the following is not a benefit of REST APIs?

• Faster than SOAP
• Built-in error handling (67% answered this correctly!)
• Closer to other Web Technologies in design philosophy

The benefits of REST include that REST is faster than SOAP because it does not require extensive processing, and that it is closer to other Web technologies in design philosophy.