[spentu]

For years I have called my APIs "HTTP API" as they usually do not follow the abstract definition of the REST. And because I've seen so many APIs being called REST that barely follow any definition of a sane API.

The whole term is used by people as synonym for an API by management and by developers who never took closer look of the definition/paper.

I think that the situation is bit like in OOP, TDD and many other things that cause flame wars. When something good ideas come up, people tend to be religious about it. Instead of taking good ideas and utilize them for better solutions, we take things to extreme and fight about tiniest things.