RESTful Web Services
Leonard Richardson & Sam Ruby
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN:  0-596-52926-0               
Non-Fiction, Computer
Reviewed by Alain Renaud

In response to the growing interest in RESTful ways of doing things, authors Leonard Richardson and Sam Ruby came together to create the latest resource from O’Reilly Media, RESTful Web Services. Aimed towards those who are interested in the RESTful approach, this resource presented the principles of connecting to the programmable web with technologies you already use every day. As Richardson explains, "The Fielding thesis defines REST as an architectural style--a way of judging architectures. The definition of REST never mentions web services, and it barely mentions HTTP. It's very abstract. But a real web service uses HTTP and it has to have a specific architecture. That's where the gap is. Therefore, as a result, he wrote this book to be the starting point forward for users everywhere. Using the Resource-Orientated Architecture which is specifically geared towards web services, you will surely find helpful answers for any of your questions. 

In this book, there are sections focused on emphasizing the power of basic web technologies, using Resource-Orientated Architecture (ROA), tips on how a RESTful design is simpler, more versatile, and more scalable than a design based on Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs), discusses web service clients for popular programming languages, demonstrates how to implement RESTful services in the three popular frameworks Ruby on Rails, Restlet (for Java), and Diango (for Python), and overall, the book focuses on practical issues such as how to design and implement RESTful web services and clients.

As with the previous O’Reilly books, I found RESTful Web Services to continue in the successful tradition of presenting potentially complicated information in such an easy to follow and logical manner. It is obvious that the authors used their considerable experience in giving us the best of the best, and I have no doubt that my every question will be answered. Aimed to being the first book to apply the REST design philosophy to real web services, I have to congratulate the authors and O’Reilly Media for giving us users exactly that!