title: What is a "resource" in Rails?
body: <p>Dumb question but I have some lingering confusion of what, exactly, a "resource" is in Rails. The term is used everywhere but I get a funny feeling it might be being used rather loosely. It's referenced in the model, the controller and, quite literally, in <code>routes.rb</code>. </p>
  
  <p>Is it the specific route? For example, <code>map.resources</code> maps the 7 RESTful "resources". So an example of <em>one</em> resource would be the call to, say, the <code>index</code> action of a particular class's controller?!?</p>
  
  <p>Is it a reference to the whole page/object being retrieved? or perhaps, more narrowly, a database table? or the row being retreived?</p>
  
  <p>Is it something else? </p>
  
  <p>Anyway, hopefully someone can set me straight...</p>