Restful Web Services
by Leonard Richardson, Sam Ruby
List Price:
Our Price: $19.55
You Save: $20.44 (51%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $12.27 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Leonard Richardson, Sam RubyForeword: David Heinemeier Hansson
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-05-15
ISBN: 0596529260
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Book Reviews of Restful Web Services
Book Review: Despite its faults, it's a great introduction to RESTful Web Services
Summary: 4 Stars
I found RESTful web services by Leonard Richardson and Sam Ruby to be a worthwhile read. However, a savvy reader would be advised to follow a few caveats. This isn't the kind of book you need or (would want to) read from cover to cover. I'd recommend for everyone to read the first couple chapters and then skip around to the examples/chapters most relevant to them. Further, I found both positive and negative aspects of the book and have outlined them below.
On the positive side, the author begins the book with a taxonomy of the entire web service landscape. This introduction will help bridge the gap for readers with no experience with web services at all. Further, I found the writers' taxonomy to be enlightening way of describing the differences in various types of web services. This taxonomy also segues nicely into a discussion of the basic tenants of RESTful web services. Readers are given a good explanation of why web services exist and how the author feels they should be written. I would even go as far to say that the author provides an adequate checklist of best practices regarding the development of RESTful web services.
On the other hand, I did find a couple of negatives with the book. First, the author has an obvious bias towards RESTful web services. This doesn't completely ruin the book, but it does leave the reader with the nagging question of why any other types of web services still exist and if they have any use at all. Obviously the book is going to be in favor of RESTful web services, however, I wish the author would have spent a little more time providing a counterargument for RPC/SOAP based alternatives. In the authors' defense, there is a dearth of books that provide a successfully comprehensive view of all the various types of web services. I would state further that this book seemed to be the most approachable for the absolute web service neophyte, which is why I choose to read this first. My other major complaint is that most of the examples are in Ruby. Admittedly, every author has to choose a core language for a book such as this. While I wouldn't classify Ruby as Pascalian-like syntax, it's readable enough for anyone with a solid scripting background. In other words, Python and Perl programmers should be able to adequately grok the syntax. Further, the author does provide copious annotation to the various source code examples found in the book. Lastly, in certain sections, examples are provided other languages such as Java and C#.
As a whole, I feel this book is a worthwhile buy for two categories of readers. First, readers seeking a concrete introduction to web services and who are willing to read another book to get an alternative perspective will find that this book provides a unique taxonomy of the entire web service landscape. Additionally, any reader looking for an explanation of RESTful web services (especially for Ruby) will find this book to be invaluable as well. No background in Web Services is necessary to read the book. Any programmer with experience writing web based applications and some very rudimentary knowledge of the HTTP protocol (i.e. what's the difference between a POST and a GET) will be able to understand the concepts in this book. You may not appreciate all of the examples (i.e. source code) and want to skip around in later chapters, but the book will teach you the basics of RESTful web services and provide some best practices for your design.
Summary of Restful Web Services
"Every developer working with the Web needs to read this book." -- David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of the Rails framework
"RESTful Web Services finally provides a practical roadmap for constructing services that embrace the Web, instead of trying to route around it." -- Adam Trachtenberg, PHP author and EBay Web Services Evangelist
You've built web sites that can be used by humans. But can you also build web sites that are usable by machines? That's where the future lies, and that's what RESTful Web Services shows you how to do. The World Wide Web is the most popular distributed application in history, and Web services and mashups have turned it into a powerful distributed computing platform. But today's web service technologies have lost sight of the simplicity that made the Web successful. They don't work like the Web, and they're missing out on its advantages.
This book puts the "Web" back into web services. It shows how you can connect to the programmable web with the technologies you already use every day. The key is REST, the architectural style that drives the Web. This book:
- Emphasizes the power of basic Web technologies -- the HTTP application protocol, the URI naming standard, and the XML markup language
- Introduces the Resource-Oriented Architecture (ROA), a common-sense set of rules for designing RESTful web services
- Shows how a RESTful design is simpler, more versatile, and more scalable than a design based on Remote Procedure Calls (RPC)
- Includes real-world examples of RESTful web services, like Amazon's Simple Storage Service and the Atom Publishing Protocol
- Discusses web service clients for popular programming languages
- Shows how to implement RESTful services in three popular frameworks -- Ruby on Rails, Restlet (for Java), and Django (for Python)
- Focuses on practical issues: how to design and implement RESTful web services and clients
Systems Analysis & Design Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Systems Analysis & Design Books
A Methodology for Client/ Server and Web Application Developmentby Roger Fournier, Yourdon Press
Prentice Hall PTR; Published: 1998-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.89
Price in other shops:
Developing and Localizing International Software (Hewlett-Packard Professional Books)by Tom Mandell, Thomas Madell, John Abegg
Prentice Hall; Published: 1994-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $29.99
Price in other shops:
LabVIEW Student Edition : MacIntosh Package/ Book and Diskby Lisa K. Wells
Prentice Hall College Div; Published: 1995-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $49.14
Price in other shops:
Applied Algebraby Darel W. Hardy, Carol L. Walker
Prentice Hall; Published: 2002-08-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.70
Price in other shops:
Microsoft Publisher 2000: Creating Electronic Mechanicals (Against the Clock Series)by ELLENN Against The Clock
Prentice Hall; Published: 1999-11-05; Spiral-bound; Book
Best price: $1.94
Price in other shops:
Modern Systems Analysis and Designby Jeffrey A. Hoffer
Prentice Hall College Div; Published: 2002-01; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops:
International Edition Computer Organizationby V.Carl Hamacher, Zvonko G. Vranesic, Safwat G. Zaky
Publication Services, Inc.; Published: 1996; Paperback; Book
Applying Use Cases: A Practical Guide (2nd Edition)by Geri Schneider, Jason P. Winters
Addison-Wesley Professional; Published: 2001-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.99
Price in other shops:
Signals and Systems (2nd Edition)by Alan V. Oppenheim, Alan S. Willsky, with S. Hamid
Prentice Hall; Published: 1996-08-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $100.00
Price in other shops:
MP - Systems Analysis & Design w/ Proj Cases CDby Jeffrey L Whitten, Lonnie D. Bentley, Kevin Dittman, Jeffrey Whitten, Lonnie Bentley
McGraw-Hill/Irwin; Published: 2003-06-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.00
Similar Books and other products
Service Design Patterns: Fundamental Design Solutions for SOAP/ WSDL and RESTful Web Servicesby Robert Daigneau
Addison-Wesley Professional; Published: 2011-11-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $36.20
Price in other shops:
Hadoop: The Definitive Guideby Tom White
Yahoo Press; Published: 2010-10-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $26.41
Price in other shops:
Ajax: The Definitive Guideby Anthony T. Holdener III
O'Reilly Media; Published: 2008-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.55
Price in other shops:
JavaScript: The Definitive Guide: Activate Your Web Pages (Definitive Guides)by David Flanagan
O'Reilly Media; Published: 2011-05-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $30.00
Price in other shops:
HTTP: The Definitive Guideby David Gourley, Brian Totty
O'Reilly Media; Published: 2002-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $29.00
Price in other shops:
REST API Design Rulebookby Mark Masse
O'Reilly Media; Published: 2011-10-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.59
Price in other shops:
RESTful .NET: Build and Consume RESTful Web Services with .NET 3.5by Jon Flanders
O'Reilly Media; Published: 2008-11-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $21.57
Price in other shops:
REST in Practice: Hypermedia and Systems Architectureby Jim Webber, Savas Parastatidis, Ian Robinson
O'Reilly Media; Published: 2010-09-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $32.77
Price in other shops:
RESTful Java with Jax-RS (Animal Guide)by Bill Burke
O'Reilly Media; Published: 2009-12-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $21.76
Price in other shops:
RESTful Web Services Cookbook: Solutions for Improving Scalability and Simplicityby Subbu Allamaraju
Yahoo Press; Published: 2010-03-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.87
Price in other shops: