Understanding HTTP Requests: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE

When you type a URL in the browser, you're making a GET request. It asks the server, 'Please give me this resource.' When you submit a login form, you're often making a POST request, sending data to the server to create something new. These are part of the HTTP verbs that power the web. In modern JavaScript development, you interact with these via the Fetch API. fetch('https://api.example.com/posts') defaults to GET. To send data, you need to pass a second argument: fetch(url, { method: 'POST', headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' }, body: JSON.stringify(data) }). The key realization for me was that the URL determines the resource, and the verb determines the action. PUT is for updating an entire resource, PATCH for partial updates, and DELETE for deletion. Understanding this RESTful pattern is essential for connecting your frontend to any backend API.