Does it matter how you implement RESTful web services?
in [Java Programming]
|
From: ses on 29 Apr 2010 10:48 Just a general open ended question - I quite familiar with SOAP / WSDL based web services and implementing them in Java (JAX-WS), but I've not much experience of RESTful web services. As it is basically just a design rather than a standard, are there any issues in terms of how you implement them (for consumption by your own applications)? Currently I'm considering just implementing them by simply writing a simple HTTP server, and consuming them using a HTTP request which are both very easy to do in java
From: Mike Schilling on 29 Apr 2010 10:55 ses wrote: > Just a general open ended question - I quite familiar with SOAP / WSDL > based web services and implementing them in Java (JAX-WS), but I've > not much experience of RESTful web services. As it is basically just a > design rather than a standard, are there any issues in terms of how > you implement them (for consumption by your own applications)? > > Currently I'm considering just implementing them by simply writing a > simple HTTP server, and consuming them using a HTTP request which are > both very easy to do in java Look into Jersewy (Sun's implementation of JAX-RS.) It's very productive, as it lets annotations do much of the work of defining the service and operations, and how the different parts of the logical message are mapped into the parts of the physical HTTP message.
From: ses on 29 Apr 2010 13:37 Thanks for the information, this Jersey API certainly seems useful. It still leaves me wondering if it is more appropriate in a lot of cases to write one's own web service using HTTP. As RESTful web services tend to be a lightweight thing it seems that perhaps it is better to have a hands-on approach to implementing it. Other than making it easier to code and to map the data in the HTTP requests/responses, what else does the Jersey API offer in terms of reliability, scalability etc. versus an ordinary HTTP server implementation in Java? On 29 Apr, 15:55, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > ses wrote: > > Just a general open ended question - I quite familiar with SOAP / WSDL > > based web services and implementing them in Java (JAX-WS), but I've > > not much experience of RESTful web services. As it is basically just a > > design rather than a standard, are there any issues in terms of how > > you implement them (for consumption by your own applications)? > > > Currently I'm considering just implementing them by simply writing a > > simple HTTP server, and consuming them using a HTTP request which are > > both very easy to do in java > > Look into Jersewy (Sun's implementation of JAX-RS.) It's very productive, > as it lets annotations do much of the work of defining the service and > operations, and how the different parts of the logical message are mapped > into the parts of the physical HTTP message.
From: Mike Schilling on 29 Apr 2010 14:56 ses wrote: > > Other than making it easier to code and to map the data in the HTTP > requests/responses, what else does the Jersey API offer in terms of > reliability, scalability etc. versus an ordinary HTTP server > implementation in Java? AFAIK, nothing, any more than using JAXB gives you scalability and reliability over coding the XML-parsing yourself.
From: Tom Anderson on 29 Apr 2010 18:33
On Thu, 29 Apr 2010, ses wrote: > Just a general open ended question - I quite familiar with SOAP / WSDL > based web services and implementing them in Java (JAX-WS), but I've not > much experience of RESTful web services. As it is basically just a > design rather than a standard, are there any issues in terms of how you > implement them (for consumption by your own applications)? > > Currently I'm considering just implementing them by simply writing a > simple HTTP server, and consuming them using a HTTP request which are > both very easy to do in java I'd usually be thinking in terms of writing a servlet (or even a JSP) rather than a server, and running it inside a servlet container. If you don't want the overhead of a servlet container, you should look into embedding Jetty: http://wiki.eclipse.org/Jetty/Tutorial/Embedding_Jetty If you want even more lightweight (but not very scalable, AFAIK), Sun's super-secret embedded webserver is already in your JDK (as long as you have a Sun 1.6 JDK): http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/jre/api/net/httpserver/spec/index.html Either way, writing an HTTP server from scratch is a mad idea. Perhaps that's not what you meant. On the client side, writing your own HTTP client is marginally less unreasonable, but still pretty silly given the existence of the JDK;s HttpURLConnection and Apache's HttpClient: http://hc.apache.org/ tom -- Formal logical proofs, and therefore programs - formal logical proofs that particular computations are possible, expressed in a formal system called a programming language - are utterly meaningless. To write a computer program you have to come to terms with this, to accept that whatever you might want the program to mean, the machine will blindly follow its meaningless rules and come to some meaningless conclusion. -- Dehnadi and Bornat |