I know REST is meant to be resource-oriented, which roughly translates to CRUD operations on these resources using standard HTTP methods. But what I just wanted to update a **part** of a resource? 

For example, let's say I have `Payment` resource and I wanted to mark its status as "`paid`". I don't want to `POST` the whole `Payment` object through HTTP (sometimes I don't even have all the data). 

What would be the RESTful way of doing this? I've seen that Twitter uses the following approach for [updating Twitter statuses](http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method:-statuses%C2%A0update):

```
http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.xml?status=playing with cURL and the Twitter API

```

Is this approach in "the spirit" of REST?

**UPDATE**: PUT -> POST

Some links I found in the meantime:

* [PUT or POST: The REST of the Story](http://jcalcote.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/put-or-post-the-rest-of-the-story/)
* [PUT is not UPDATE](http://cafe.elharo.com/web/put-is-not-update/)
* [PATCH Method for HTTP](http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-dusseault-http-patch-11.html)