Learn REST: A Tutorial: 13. For More About REST

Purely academic: the notion of REST was created in the PhD dissertation of Roy T. Fielding.
Mostly academic: the Wikipedia article about REST.
JSR 311 is the Java Specification Request for "JAX-RS: The Java API for RESTful Web Services".
- At the time of writing (Feb '08), still in draft review stages.
- Check out this presentation for a good overview of the JSR.
Restlet is suggesting an easier way to develop REST applications in Java: restlet.org.
WADL: find the specification and tools in the Web Application Description Language's homepage.
Articles are a dime a dozen; here are a few interesting ones:
- Second Generation Web Services by Paul Prescod.
- The Beauty of REST, by Jon Udell.
- Building Web Services the REST Way by Roger L. Costello
- REST vs. SOAP, by Pete Freitag.
- Basic SOA using REST, by Mark Hansen.
Books: At the time of writing (Feb '08), there's only one:
- RESTful Web Services by Leonard Richardson -- a concise and practical guide, with concrete examples in Ruby, Java and Python.
- There's also Ajax and REST Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, by Christian Gross, which seems to be more about AJAX than about REST.
Expect many more books to appear as REST gains increasing acceptance.

27 comments:

iTouch, iPad and iPhone for learningOctober 4, 2009 at 7:21 AM
A very insightful and good set of articles. Thank you
A suggestion - could you add some support for sharing on your BLOG (eg. DIGG / Twitter / Facebook)?
Dr. M. ElksteinOctober 7, 2009 at 12:54 AM
Hello Divya,

Done. Thanks for the advice.
Phill ColemanNovember 26, 2009 at 3:07 AM
Thanks for the great little "walk-through" of what REST is all about.
James PouloseDecember 4, 2009 at 6:39 PM
Hi Doc, That was a nice place for me to start with ReST. I've been searching net for the exact 'meaning' of this stuff. Now you have explained it in pretty simple manner. I have a small suggestion. In the example section you have mentioned only about how to make ReST requests. As you have explained earlier a simple URL in a browser can also be a request. The samples are just to make them programaticaly. What i would really like to understand is that how am i going to host a ReSTful service. Normal WS would end up in SOAP and other stuff. Do i need to have my own Http handlers and/or Http Modules for this? Can you please throw some light on this?
Dr. M. ElksteinDecember 6, 2009 at 9:08 PM
Hello James,

Indeed, I have written little about the server-side part of REST, seeing that it is no different than "regular" web serving (except that the output is to be consumed by machines, not people). I see now that more and more people ask for this extension, and I plan to write about it in the (hopefully near) future.
Shashikant SonawaneJuly 14, 2011 at 11:23 PM
Its really helpful for Learners.
YoramdJanuary 8, 2012 at 6:47 AM
Very interesting and helpful article to start with!
satishFebruary 2, 2012 at 12:36 AM
Great place to learn ReST. Thanks a lot.
AkashApril 19, 2012 at 7:46 AM
Thanks Man, Very Helpful tutorial !
PrakashMay 24, 2012 at 3:12 AM
Good overview of an abstract topic !!
MuraliAugust 5, 2012 at 6:07 PM
Dr. Elkstein, thanks for a quick and simple introductory tutorial for REST.
SivanOctober 27, 2012 at 1:29 PM
Dear Dr,

This is an excellent article and answered to all of my question? do you mind If I took some of your pages and put a credit goes to you and publish on my blog. I want it to be understandable by most of the people, my site will powered by Google translator, so any person who know only Russian or Spanish can also read very easily.

But I never mention my name because all the credit is for you only. let me know what you think?
Dr. M. ElksteinNovember 1, 2012 at 2:03 AM
Hello Sivan,

Thank you, but I kindly ask that you do not publish translated versions of this page. Feel free to link to these pages, possibly via Google Translate. Thanks!
UnknownJanuary 4, 2013 at 4:02 AM
Excellent article.... Simple, but apt explanation.... Could gather a lot about REST in a hour... Thanks...
Lineker TOmazeliMarch 13, 2013 at 12:42 PM
Very good article. Good job.
UnknownMay 15, 2013 at 10:43 AM
Honesty the best piece of work I've read for a long time.

Thanks Dr!
UnknownJune 20, 2013 at 5:01 AM
just a small thank you from the netherlands. excellent tutorial!
SundarDecember 23, 2013 at 4:52 AM
Simple, informative and interesting read. Thanks.
GabrielleFebruary 10, 2014 at 8:23 AM
Thank you, it was quite interesting and very clear. Excellent start point to jump into REST.
The BrookJuly 10, 2014 at 2:46 AM
Very Nice Tutorial on REST. In fact i've landed here after Couple of Online courses on REST. This article cleared existing doubts and detailed some of the vague concepts.

Thank you
AmandaJuly 13, 2014 at 11:06 AM
very nicely written. was helpful
shivaAugust 12, 2014 at 7:58 PM
Thank you, tutorial was very helpful
UnknownOctober 7, 2014 at 12:39 PM
Dr. Elkstein,

It was a pleasure to read your tutorial. Just enough content to get a very solid handle on the concepts without being over inundated with specific implementation details.

Armed with the knowledge provide I feel confident and comfortable about architecting restful services.
UnknownNovember 28, 2014 at 1:04 AM
great presentation. thank you very much!!!!!
UnknownJanuary 25, 2015 at 9:26 AM
Nice article. Well written.
СмилянJuly 1, 2015 at 6:48 AM
I wish all articles were written in this manner. Simple, straightforward, get the point across without all the fluff!

Thank you for providing quality information and not wasting our time!
nageshandaniJuly 20, 2015 at 11:25 AM
Simple REST, Simple way of explanation. Very helpful for dummies to get started with REST.