What is a web interface?

The changes in design patterns that have led to the rise of web apps have been accompanied by changes to the way that web servers are used. Today, many client-side JavaScript web applications and standalone applications make use of web interfaces. A web interface allows a site to expose functionality to both web apps and other applications. For example creating a user on a particular site or granting them access to some resource would be done via a HTTP POST to a particular URL. The contents of that message would describe what should be done, and the web interface would respond with a message in JSON, XML, or HTML describing the result of the action. When the HTTP requests (GET, POST, etc.) are used properly and no state is carried between actions, the interface is sometimes referred to a RESTful (representational state transfer).

Credits: Talking: Geoffrey Challen (Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo). Producing: Greg Bunyea (Undergraduate, Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo).

Part of the https://www.internet-class.org online internet course. A blue Systems Research Group (https://blue.cse.buffalo.edu) production.