RESTful Web APIs by Leonard Richardson, Mike Amundsen, Sam Ruby (O'Reilly Media)

 May 28, 2013

The API are now becoming more used every day. Today every major website provides it’s own set of API and often the company websites and services are chosen (or not chosen) based on the availability of API and their design.

In this huge world that is getting bigger every day, RESTful API plays a huge role, in fact a lot of companies are moving their API to RESTful API since it’s easier to use, therefore more attractive for potential clients.

This book is an average-size book, in fact is a 356 (real) pages long book and features 38 additional pages containing other things like covers, indexes, glossary, etc.

The book is easy to read thanks to it’s simple language and the fact that is split in 13 chapters and 3 appendices (averagely ~22 pages per chapter/appendix).

One of the good things of this book is the fact that it does not require any specific knowledge acquired before start reading the book. A proof of this approach are the first three chapters that talk more about HTTP and how it works more than RESTful API. This makes the book very good for people that are moving their first steps in the web programming world, while eats up a lot of space for people that are already skilled and are looking for some more complex examples.

I think the book is a very good resource to learn the basics of RESTful API. I’m not sure that a person that already knows a lot about RESTful API would have a good ROI reading this book.

You can find the book at O’Reilly website.

Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this book as part of the O’Reilly Blogger Program