If you're a web developer you should know this!!.
Why should I? Let's quote Joel Spolsky on this one:
...some of the biggest mistakes people make even at the highest architectural levels come from having a weak or broken understanding of a few simple things at the very lowest levels.
It's important to get to know the intricacies of the systems/frameworks/tools we use. If you're a .net or java developer, many of the working tidbits of the HTTP protocol are hidden behing IDE screens and wizards.
If you're building Software as a Service for the web, there's a high chance that you will need to expose an API to let developers interact with your product/service. It's specifically important to get to know what REST is, and the basic verbs used to consume URI's (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE).
You will also need some tools to make your REST/API development easier: If you're a Linux or OS X User, you've probably heard of curl, if you program on a windows environment checkout Fiddler. You can also checkout the Postman REST client, which runs on Google Chrome.
References:
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On HTTP:
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On REST: