This is a course about how the web works under the hood. Web traffic uses the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to communicate. Knowing how HTTP works allows the construction of intelligent web services. Putting web services together creatively is the basis for making great web sites.
This course centers on understanding of the HTTP protocol and using python to make simple HTTP web services.
Nice to haves:
What I'm not going to cover much of:
But really, this course should be mostly about what you want to/need to learn. So if we need to spend more time on a topic, then we will.
A web service provides a consumable function over HTTP
A good web service does one thing well.
Examples of web service functions:
Examples of web services:
Examples of web service software:
Web services may be designed to be consumed by humans, computers, or both. The goal of a web service is the conveyance of data, NOT presentation.
Example: http://k0s.org/anagram?web+services gives one anagram per line for the letters in web services. This is easily readable by a human. It is also easily readable -- and therefore consumable -- by a computer.
A web site is a domain (and potentially a path) that conveys the expression of the website author(s) and governing body
A web site is typically composed of a number of web services.
Example: a basic blog has a number of web services:
A web service is usually meant to be a service that can stand alone without being integrated into a web site. A web site may consume any number of web services and present them seemlessly. This sort of architecture allows perfection and development of individual web services independent of how they are presented to end-users.
Its much easier to make soup out of ingredients than to make ingredients out of soup.
We'll get back to these later