Effective REST Services via .NET: For .NET Framework 3.5 (Paperback)

~ (Author), Scott Seely (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Build Web Services Better and Faster with RESTful Techniques and .NET Technologies

 

Developers are rapidly discovering the power of REST to simplify the development of even the most sophisticated Web services—and today’s .NET platform is packed with tools for effective REST development. Now, for the first time, there’s a complete, practical guide to building REST-based services with .NET development technologies.

 

Long-time .NET and Web services developers and authors Kenn Scribner and Scott Seely explain why REST fits so smoothly into the Internet ecosystem, why RESTful services are so much easier to build, what it means to be RESTful, and how to identify behaviors that are not RESTful. Next, they review the core Internet standards and .NET technologies used to develop RESTful solutions and show exactly how to apply them on both the client and server side. Using detailed
code examples, Scribner and Seely begin with simple ASP.NET techniques, and then introduce increasingly powerful options—including Windows Communication
Foundation (WCF) and Microsoft’s cloud computing initiative, Azure. Coverage includes

 

• Accessing RESTful services from desktop applications, using Windows Forms and WPF

• Supporting Web client operations using Silverlight 2.0, JavaScript, and other technologies

• Understanding how IIS 7.0 processes HTTP requests and using that knowledge to build better REST services

• Constructing REST services based on traditional ASP.NET constructs

• Utilizing the ASP.NET MVC Framework to implement RESTful services more effectively

• Taking advantage of WCF 3.5’s powerful REST-specific capabilities

• Creating RESTful data views effortlessly with ADO.NET Data Services

• Leveraging Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing platform to build innovative new services

• Choosing the right .NET technology for each REST application or service

 

About the Author

Kenn Scribner has been writing cutting-edge, software-based books on Microsoft technologies for more than 10 years. His books include Windows Workflow Foundation Step by Step (Microsoft Press) and Understanding SOAP (SAMS). Kenn is a senior software consultant whose clients have included The Weather Channel, CBS, Burton, and Microsoft.

 

Scott Seely, an architect at MySpace, works on the OpenSocial API, one of the world’s most successful REST-based APIs. Before joining MySpace, he was a developer on the Windows Communication Foundation team at Microsoft. His books include Creating and Consuming Web Services in Visual Basic (Addison-Wesley) and SOAP: Cross Platform Web Service Development Using XML (Prentice Hall).

 

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (April 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321613252
• ISBN-13: 978-0321613257
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #283,776 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Options galore for consuming and building RESTful Services, May 9, 2009

By	Techie Evan - See all my reviews

.Net developers now have several technology options for building applications that consume and/or serve up RESTful services. This book provides tutorials on potentially popular .Net 3.5 and up technology options, including the relatively new ASP.Net MVC and Azure (Cloud Computing) Services Frameworks (the latter is still a technology preview, but download links are provided). The book begins with two helpful chapters that introduce RESTful concepts in great detail and provide guiding principles for designing RESTful Services. Desktop (i.e., WinForms and Windows Presentation Foundation) and Web (i.e., Silverlight 2.0) Client technologies for consuming RESTful Services are tackled next (code samples provided include code for a simple PhotoManager Service which is discussed in greater detail in later chapters). Chapter Five (IIS [7.0] and ASP.Net Internals and Instrumentation) is a special chapter that sets things up for later discussions of server-side technologies, which starts with a discussion in Chapter Six of how to build a basic home-grown RESTful Services Framework for use with plain ASP.Net applications using only HTTPHandlers, UriTemplate, UriTemplateMatch, and UriTemplateTables. The remaining chapters then show you how it's possible to build more complex applications using increasingly more sophisticated technologies such as ASP.Net MVC, Windows Communications Framework (WCF), ADO.Net Data Services, and Azure Cloud Computing Services.

The authors do a great job introducing each technology so that even readers who may be unfamiliar with one or more of the covered technologies would still be able to follow the discussion easily if they are somewhat comfortable with XML, JSON, and LINQ. They have definite opinions about how to use some of these technologies effectively and readers will find their advice worth considering. Of course, in deciding to go for breadth of coverage, the authors can only discuss each technology to a certain level of depth.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn the ins and outs of RESTful Services, June 23, 2009

By	T. Anderson (PA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

I have resisted reading about and digging into REST for a while now. Every time I would pick up an article or book I felt like I transported back to the 90's and I was reading an old HTML 2.0 book or specification. The stuff I started on the internet with. To me the REST movement is kind of like the A-HA moment of the internet programming community. Kind of like, "O... that is what they intended".

This book brought all those back in time feelings up all throughout the first 2 chapters. I must say though, that I thoroughly enjoyed reading them. The history lesson and the state of things today, where very well written and kept my attention and interest throughout both chapters. The author's do a great job of digging into the guts of the foundations of REST, which really helps in the later chapters when they discuss the .NET tools used to develop RESTful solutions.

I also like that the authors aren't RESTful zealots. They give Web Services their rightful place and do not present REST as a new silver bullet, but rather a new tool for the tool belt.

They cover a ton of stuff in the remaining chapters and appendixes including using RESTful services from desktop applications using Windows Forms and WPF, using Silverlight 2.0, JavaScript, the ASP.NET MVC Framework, WCF 3.5, IIS 7.0, and Azure. Every chapter goes deep enough into the topic to give you a great start down the right path of using the technology.

The book is a very pleasant read and is well organized.

The downloadable code is very usable, well organized, and contains some great example implementations.

I also have noticed the authors are keeping the accompanying web site up to date and have already released a code fix.

If you want to learn the ins and outs of RESTful Services using .NET technologies, this book is the ticket.

I highly recommend this book.