Representational State Transfer (REST) is a software architecture style consisting of guidelines and best practices for creating scalable web services. REST is a coordinated set of constraints applied to the design of components in a distributed hypermdedia system that can lead to a more performant and maintainable architecture. – wikipedia
ASP.NET Web API is a framework that makes it easy to build HTTP services that reach a broad range of clients, including browsers and mobile devices. ASP.NET Web API is an ideal platform for building RESTful applications on the .NET Framework.
RESTful是一种软件架构风格（REST是一种设计风格，而不是一种标准），而ASP.NET Web API是其在.NET平台的一种标准/实现。目前在三种主流的Web Services实现方案中，因为REST模式与复杂的SOAP和XML -PRC相比更加简洁，越来越多的web服务开始采用REST风格设计和实现。
