About this Book
We wrote this book to help readers efficiently develop RESTful web APIs based on the Restlet Framework. It is also an answer to the open source Restlet community’s request for a comprehensive guide to this technology. The book introduces you to the world of REST and HTTP through the use of the Restlet Framework, which directly derives from those standards.
We’ve tried to stay very practical throughout the book by providing many source code listings and illustrative figures, introducing Restlet concepts and fundamentals along the way. In addition, an example RESTful mail system serves as a conductor all along the book.
Six appendixes provide additional details related to the Restlet technology as well as a generic presentation of the REST architecture style and of the ROA/D design methodology that are both valuable beyond the Restlet Framework.
Our main audience is Java developers who are interested in the web standards such as HTTP and REST, as well as their usage to expose and consume web APIs. No prior knowledge of Restlet is required.
Readers should ideally be familiar with the Java EE ecosystem including technologies such as Servlet, OSGi, and Spring Framework to make the most of the book, but this isn’t a prerequisite to reading the book.