What is a RESTful API and how would you consume it in a web application?

@garth 

A RESTful API is an architectural style for designing and developing web services that adhere to the constraints of the Representational State Transfer (REST) approach. RESTful APIs rely on HTTP protocol methods such as GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE to interact with resources on a web server.

To consume a RESTful API in a web application, you would typically use HTTP requests to access and manipulate the resources provided by the API. This can be done using a variety of tools and libraries, such as the Fetch API or Axios in JavaScript, or libraries like Retrofit in Java or RestSharp in C#.

The general steps to consume a RESTful API in a web application are:

1. Identify the endpoint(s) and methods provided by the API.
2. Send an HTTP request to the endpoint using the appropriate method.
3. Receive the response from the API, which typically includes data in a structured format such as JSON or XML.
4. Parse the response data and use it to update the state of the web application, such as displaying data to the user or updating the application's internal data store.

It's important to note that when consuming a RESTful API, you need to ensure that you're following best practices and guidelines provided by the API's documentation, such as using proper authentication mechanisms, handling errors gracefully, and adhering to rate limiting policies.