Can you describe the main principles underlying REST architecture?

REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style for creating web services based on the following core principles:

1. Client-server architecture: clients and servers are separated, allowing them to evolve independently.

2. Statelessness: each request from a client to a server must contain all the information needed to understand and process the request; the server does not store any state between requests.

3. Cacheability: server responses should explicitly indicate whether they can be cached to improve performance.

4. Uniform interface: using standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.) to interact with resources.

5. Resource hierarchy: resources are identified by URIs, and interactions occur through representations of these resources.

6. Layered system: architecture can be composed of multiple layers, enhancing scalability and security.

Example: to retrieve information about a user with id=1, a GET request is made to the URI /users/1.