RESTful Web Services 1.0

By Leonard Richardson, Sam Ruby

Published by OReilly Media (http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529260/)

"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

Youve built web sites that can be used by humans. But can you also build web sites that are usable by machines? Thats where the future lies, and thats 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 todays web service technologies have lost sight of the simplicity that made the Web successful. They dont work like the Web, and theyre 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 Amazons 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.

Superb Reading Features
Through a partnership between OReilly Media and Lexcycle, this app includes the same features that have made Stanza an iPhone phenomenon with over a million downloads:
- Full book text search
- Several fonts and themes to choose from
- Built-in dictionary
- The ability to add annotations
- Landscape view
- Extensive cross-referencing and working hyperlinks
- Zoom function for images and screenshots

About OReilly Media
OReilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, research, and conferences. Whether its delivered in print, online, or in person, everything OReilly produces reflects the companys unshakeable belief in the power of information to spur innovation. Learn more about Ebooks from OReilly at oreilly.com/ebooks.

About Lexcycle
Lexcycle is the creator of Stanza Bookbinder which was used to create this standalone book application. Stanza Bookbinder is based on the popular iPhone Ebook reading application, Stanza. For more information about Stanza, visit www.lexcycle.com.