I'm currently reading the documentation of Django REST Framework; and in this post I'll mention few terms I've encountered and quick summary of what is it about so that I can refer to this later.
Note: I'm making these with reference to mostly JSON data format for ease of understanding. But your RESTful API may support other data formats.
Django REST Framework
Serialization
It is the process of converting complex data type (Objects) to primitive data type (dict/list) so that it can be passed as JSON. Notice that it is not about converting object to JSON format, but objects to a primitive data type such as dict/list.
Renderers
Once you have the primitive data type (dict/list), it is the responsibility of renderer to dump it as JSON to the client. ( or in whatever data format the client wants data which is depicted by Accept header). It is intermediate representation of template & contenxt; and converts final byte stream that is served to the client.
Parsers
When you receive a request on your API, the parser converts the request.data into primitive data type (such as dict/list) which then can be deserialized as an object. The content that your API permits is depicted by Content-Type header and then appropriate Parser class can be used.
Content Negotiation
It is the process of selecting the best representation format depending on the Rederers available in your API. This phase is partly client driven; and partly server-driven. The renderer is selected based on client's Accept header and also by the priority order in which Renderers are available in your API.
I'll update this post later with more important things :)
Comments !