One of the first things to understand about web development is the four different HTTP requests. Today we are going to dive into them at a high level.
The most common HTTP request is the GET method. This is simply retrieving a resource or page from a server. When you visit Google.com, you make GET request for their homepage. When you search, you're making a GET request for all search results that contain certain keywords.
If you've ever posted a message on Facebook or Twitter, you've submitted a POST request. The POST method is used when you want to save something new on the service. When you register for an account, that's also going to be a POST request.
The PUT and PATCH requests are used for modifying an existing record on the server. If you change your password on your Twitter account, it will use a PUT (or PATCH) request that tells Twitter to modify your account's password.
The DELETE request is pretty self-explanatory; it deletes a record on the server. If you want to delete a tweet, you'll be submitting a DELETE request to Twitter to remove that tweet.
All in all, the 4 types of HTTP requests are very simple. You have access to viewing, creating, modifying, and deleting records on a service. Each of these requests have ways of submitting data so that you can do things like filter results.
In the next article, we will be talking how to combine HTTP requests with the URLs (or routes) your application responds to in order to create an application.