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| RESTful Web Services | 
 enlarge | Authors: Leonard Richardson, Sam Ruby
Creator: David Heinemeier Hansson
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $22.30
You Save: $17.69 (44%)
Buy New/Used from $11.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  (32 reviews)
Sales Rank: 7731
Format: Illustrated
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 446
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7 x 1.1
ISBN: 0596529260
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.76
EAN: 9780596529260
ASIN: 0596529260
Publication Date: May 8, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 An important guide August 6, 2007
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
Collections strong in web services and web development will find Leonard Richardson & Sam Ruby's RESTFUL WEB SERVICES an important guide to connecting web functions with everyday technologies everyone uses. REST is an architectural style that drives the web, and RESTFUL WEB SERVICES introduces ROA and the roles that govern design of RESTFUL web services. Advanced computer libraries catering to programmers need this expose which surveys functions and real-world applications, including common problems and solutions.
 Nearly Abysmal August 2, 2007
83 out of 101 found this review helpful
1) The editors were apparently on vacation. There are numerous errors including several typographical errors that a simple spell-check would have caught (words like "ang" and "extrenal") and a number of ungrammatical sentences.
2) The authors frequently make best practices statements without actually supporting them with evidence or otherwise explaining what makes them best practices.
3) There's really only about 100 pages of content. The other three quarters of the book is repetition. For example, chapters 4 and 8 seem to be the same. There is even a specific example regarding content language that is presented in chapter 4 and not referred to but simply repeated in chapter 8.
This book could be obsoleted by a brief 3 part tutorial perhaps combined with a half-hour slide show.
Excellent web services resource July 20, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is the definitive reference on REST and its principles. It explains in great detail the foundations of well designed web services, and provides excellent advice on how to model them, mixing a lot of theory and code (most of it written in Ruby). Essential reading for anyone working with the web.
 A lot of information. Maybe too much. July 15, 2007
40 out of 48 found this review helpful
There's a lot of material in this book - close to 400 dense pages of highly technical information. This and the ton of examples can't help but impress upon you that the authors are smart. Very smart.
The problem I have with this book is that maybe there's too much information. REST is supposed to simplify things, right? Up until this point I've read about REST in a couple of Rails book. I understand it (I think) and believe it's the wave of the future, especially after spending hours slogging through 800+ page books on JEE Web Services, WS-Death-*s (good call DHH!) and SOAs. While this book clocks in with less pages, it's still a tough read at times. And sometimes it was easy to lose sight of the forest while meandering through the numerous and sometimes-scattered trees.
Maybe that's just how tech books are; I don't know. I do know that most people are pressed for time and don't live and breath this stuff - which could explain the popularity of the "For Dummies" and "Head First" series.
Come to think of it, that's what I'd like to see: a "Head First RESTful Web Services" book. I think that would actually *help more people* to understand, and thus use, this technology.
Back to Basics July 15, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I've been programming the web for more than 10 years and this book does an amazing job of bringing all of us back to basics. So many whiz bang technologies have been built on *top* of the web, all the while losing sight of what makes the HTTP protocol brilliantly successful.
Einstein once said: "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." This epitomizes the goals of HTTP and RESTful web service design. It's about time we had a book that cut through the muck of SOAP and SOA and showed us that all we needed was right here from the beginning.
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