Web Application Architecture: Principles, Protocols and Practices [Paperback]

Leon Shklar (Author), Rich Rosen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 047051860X | ISBN-13: 978-0470518601 | Publication Date: May 19, 2009 | Edition: 2

In-depth examination of concepts and principles of Web application development

Completely revised and updated, this popular book returns with coverage on a range of new technologies. Authored by a highly respected duo, this edition provides an in-depth examination of the core concepts and general principles of Web application development. Packed with examples featuring specific technologies, this book is divided into three sections: HTTP protocol as a foundation for Web applications, markup languages (HTML, XML, and CSS), and survey of emerging technologies. After a detailed introduction to the history of Web applications, coverage segues to core Internet protocols, Web browsers, Web application development, trends and directions, and more.

• Includes new coverage on technologies such as application primers, Ruby on Rails, SOAP, XPath, P3P, and more
• Explores the fundamentals of HTTP and its evolution
• Looks at HTML and its roots as well as XML languages and applications
• Reviews the basic operation of Web Servers, their functionality, configuration, and security
• Discusses how to process flow in Web browsers and looks at active browser pages
• Addresses the trends and various directions that the future of Web application frameworks may be headed

This book is essential reading for anyone who needs to design or debug complex systems, and it makes it easier to learn the new application programming interfaces that arise in a rapidly changing Internet environment.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

It is not enough for Web application developers to be proficient in just one platform. As platforms grow and evolve, and as new ones arise, developers must be able to transfer their proficiency across platforms in order to build complex Web applications effectively. This book helps developers understand the underlying core technologies so that they can learn new APIs and application frameworks more quickly.

Web Application Architecture provides an in-depth examination of the basic concepts and general principles associated with Web application development, using examples that illustrate specific technologies. This conceptual knowledge is critical when building and deploying complex systems that are scaleable, extensible, maintainable and reusable. The book explains the underlying protocols and languages that support Web application development, and delineates the best practices associated with building robust applications. It describes mechanisms for providing Web access to heterogeneous data sources including relational databases and multimedia.

The new edition includes brand new and fully updated chapters on:

• Internet protocols - from TCP/IP to HTTP and beyond
• software components - servers, browsers, proxies and agents
• the dynamic web - how web applications present dynamic data
• markup languages – HTML, XML and CSS
• tools, libraries and frameworks - AJAX, Struts, and Ruby on Rails
• search technologies – underlying principles, application design, and SEO
• future directions and emerging technologies – XML Query, RDF, and the Semantic Web

Ideally suited for course usage and self-study, this practical, engaging textbook is essential reading for students, programmers and system architects and designers alike. It provides a comprehensive, timely overview of modern web technology.

Visit the supplementary website at www.wileyeurope.com/college/shklar

About the Author

Leon Shklar currently works for Thomson Reuters where he is the head of technology for Reuters Media. Previously, Leon headed up the development team for the online edition of the Wall Street Journal at Dow Jones. Prior to joining Dow Jones, he spent six years at Bell Communications Research and almost as long in the world of dot-coms and Internet software. Leon holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Rutgers University.

Rich Rosen is a senior developer in the Fixed Income Systems Group at Interactive Data Corporation. Previously, he was an Application Architect at Dow Jones. Rich began his career at Bell Labs, where his work with relational databases and the Internet prepared him the world of Web application development. He is a co-author of Mac OS X for Unix Geeks, 4th Edition (O'Reilly). Rich holds an M.S. in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology.

Product Details

• Paperback: 440 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 2 edition (May 19, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047051860X
• ISBN-13: 978-0470518601
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #198,867 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great update to the first edition, lots of new material, October 7, 2010

By 

Marc Tobell "website architect and developer" (Sunnyvale CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Web Application Architecture: Principles, Protocols and Practices (Paperback)

Have to disagree with prior reviewer's complaint that the book doesn't cover Java EE 5. It's not supposed to, it's not a Java book, it's a book on the principles and protocols of web application development. Authors say upfront they don't focus on a specific API, toolkit, or framework. They cover HTTP, XML and HTML through HTML5, core protocols and languages of the web. In discussing server-side web application frameworks and client-side techniques using Javascript and Ajax, they have an agnostic attitude that doesn't endorse one approach. Instead they survey the many available options contrasting their benefits and shortcomings. The end result is that you learn what all approaches have in common, reliance on underlying standard protcols. The new material improves on what was already a great text book. Coverage of new frameworks since the last edition has been added. Two new chapters on search engines and on Javascript/Ajax are excellent. The administrative interface sample application is the most objective tutorial on Rails I've read. There's also expanded coverage of semantic web and web services, both SOAP and REST.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good book for connecting the dots, October 13, 2010

By 

SOA Manager - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Web Application Architecture: Principles, Protocols and Practices (Paperback)

This book gives a great overview of web concepts and how they relate to each other. It goes into enough technical detail to describe the concept, but doesn't get bogged down in technical details. I am recommending this book to experienced members of my team to establish a strong foundation of web concepts.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Teaches fundamentals every web developer should be familiar with, October 17, 2010

By 

David R. Heffelfinger (Fairfax, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Web Application Architecture: Principles, Protocols and Practices (Paperback)

I was fortunate enough to be an undergrad in college in the early to mid 90's when Internet was taking off. This gave me the opportunity to use the world wide web long before Internet access at home was commonplace. I've been involved with the web as a user since the early 1990's, and as a developer since the mid/late 1990's.

The first chapters of this book were a trip down memory lane for me, I remember scouring public FTP sites for open source/shareware/freeware software I could install on my PC at home, or even use on the Unix boxes of the university. I remember using telnet to connect to remote systems around campus. When the world wide web came around, I remember using the Mosaic browser being flabbergasted at how cool it all was.

Nowadays, a lot of web application developers never had the opportunity to use these earlier protocols that were commonplace before the world wide web took off. This book provides an overview of these protocols.

Additionally, in this day an age, we have several powerful IDE's, frameworks and libraries that make our lives easier when developing web applications. While these tools are a boon to productivity, in many cases these tools shield web application developers from what actually happens "behind the scenes".

The proliferation of these tools have caused a new generation of web developers that are not familiar with fundamentals such as the HTTP protocol, XML and even HTML and Javascript.

Shklar and Rosen present these fundamentals in a clear, concise way. After going through this book, web application developers will have enough knowledge to know what is going on behind all their IDE generated applications that rely on a bunch of libraries. They also compare several approaches to web application development, such as programmatic, template based, hybrids and frameworks.

The book has a lot of breadth and by necessity not a lot of depth, however it provides enough information for the reader to become sufficiently versed in these topics, should he/she ever need to dig down and see what is going on behind the scenes of the application being developed.

One minor complaint I have about the book is that the authors chose to use Struts 1 as their framework of choice for one of their case study application, Struts 1 is considered by many to be an obsolete framework. The authors also seem less than enthusiastic about JSF, which personally I have found to be a better, more intuitive framework than Struts. To their credit, JSF 2.0, which adds a lot of very nice features, was released around the same time this book was published.