RESTful web services: Includes index

"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 This is the first book that applies the REST design philosophy to real web services. It sets down the best practices you need to make your design a success, and the techniques you need to turn your design into working code. You can harness the power of the Web for programmable applications: you just have to work with the Web instead of against it. This book shows you how. Chapter 1 The Programmable Web and Its Inhabitants Kinds of Things on the Programmable Web HTTP: Documents in Envelopes Method Information Scoping Information The Competing Architectures Technologies on the Programmable Web Leftover Terminology Chapter 2 Writing Web Service Clients Web Services Are Web Sites del.icio.us: The Sample Application Making the Request: HTTP Libraries Processing the Response: XML Parsers JSON Parsers: Handling Serialized Data Clients Made Easy with WADL Chapter 3 What Makes RESTful Services Different? Introducing the Simple Storage Service Object-Oriented Design of S3 Resources HTTP Response Codes An S3 Client Request Signing and Access Control Using the S3 Client Library Clients Made Transparent with ActiveResource Parting Words Chapter 4 The Resource-Oriented Architecture Resource-Oriented What Now? What’s a Resource? URIs Addressability Statelessness Representations Links and Connectedness The Uniform Interface * That’s It! Chapter 5 Designing Read-Only Resource-Oriented Services Resource Design Turning Requirements Into Read-Only Resources Figure Out the Data Set Split the Data Set into Resources Name the Resources Design Your Representations Link the Resources to Each Other The HTTP Response Conclusion Chapter 6 Designing Read/Write Resource-Oriented Services User Accounts as Resources Custom Places A Look Back at the Map Service Chapter 7 A Service Implementation A Social Bookmarking Web Service Figuring Out the Data Set Resource Design Design the Representation(s) Accepted from the Client Design the Representation(s) Served to the Client Connect Resources to Each Other What’s Supposed to Happen? What Might Go Wrong? Controller Code Model Code What Does the Client Need to Know? Chapter 8 REST and ROA Best Practices Resource-Oriented Basics The Generic ROA Procedure Addressability State and Statelessness Connectedness The Uniform Interface This Stuff Matters Resource Design URI Design Outgoing Representations Incoming Representations Service Versioning Permanent URIs Versus Readable URIs Standard Features of HTTP Faking PUT and DELETE The Trouble with Cookies Why Should a User Trust the HTTP Client? Chapter 9 The Building Blocks of Services Representation Formats Prepackaged Control Flows Hypermedia Technologies Chapter 10 The Resource-Oriented Architecture Versus Big Web Services What Problems Are Big Web Services Trying to Solve? SOAP WSDL UDDI Security Reliable Messaging Transactions BPEL, ESB, and SOA Conclusion Chapter 11 Ajax Applications as REST Clients From AJAX to Ajax The Ajax Architecture A del.icio.us Example The Advantages of Ajax The Disadvantages of Ajax REST Goes Better Making the Request Handling the Response JSON Don’t Bogart the Benefits of REST Cross-Browser Issues and Ajax Libraries Subverting the Browser Security Model Chapter 12 Frameworks for RESTful Services Ruby on Rails Restlet Django Appendix Some Resources for REST and Some RESTful Resources Standards and Guides Services You Can Use Appendix The HTTP Response Code Top 42 Three to Seven Status Codes: The Bare Minimum 1xx: Meta 2xx: Success 3xx: Redirection 4xx: Client-Side Error 5xx: Server-Side Error Appendix The HTTP Header Top Infinity Standard Headers Nonstandard Headers Colophon The Programmable Web and Its Inhabitants Writing Web Service Clients What Makes RESTful Services Different? The Resource-Oriented Architecture Designing Read-Only Resource-Oriented Services Designing Read/Write Resource-Oriented Services A Service Implementation REST and ROA Best Practices The Building Blocks of Services The Resource-Oriented Architecture Versus Big Web Services Ajax Applications as REST Clients Frameworks for RESTful Services A. Some Resources for REST and Some RESTful Resources B. The HTTP Response Code Top 42 C. The HTTP Header Top Infinity 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 this book shows you how to do. Today's web service technologies have lost sight of the simplicity that made the Web successful. This book explains how to put the Web" back into web services with REST, the architectural style that drives the Web." Shows how to use the REST architectural style to create web sites that can be used by computers as well as machines, providing basic rules for using REST and real-life examples of such web services.