Book Review: RESTful Java Web Services

Introduction.

RESTful web services have been with us for a while now, and initially I, like many others, was put-off by the general lack of information on how to design and implement a RESTful web services correctly. However, a number of books are now available that attempt to guide the way by documenting the RESTful standard, its principals, and the Java implementation frameworks available to help.

Packt Publishing have teamed up with Jose Sandoval to publish their offering: “RESTful Java Web Services” — a short-format & developer-focused book that attempts to quickly tutor the reader on the RESTful standard and illustrate how to code RESTful services with a number of popular REST frameworks.

Review.

RESTful Java Web Services begins with a discussion on the principals of RESTful applications and how RESTful Web Services can play a part in a well designed Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The core concept at the heart of REST is the provision of web-accessible ‘resources’ or entities that can be created, edited and deleted by users issuing standard HTTP requests. These resources are presented to users via ‘representations’ in the users chosen format (often with multiple format’s available for the same resource). This combination of existing technologies, flexible formats and fixed interaction types is attractive because of its simplicity and flexibility — something you don’t often hear when evaluating other SOA technologies.

Before moving on to discuss the details of RESTful service implementation with Java, the book first deals with how to successfully access a RESTful resource using a number of different HTTP client API’s such as Commons HTTP. It’s a useful introduction but unfortunately no TDD related RESTful client API’s or SOA testing tools are offered for consideration — an omission that you should be aware of if you buy the book.

The books core chapters cover the coding of RESTful services using four freely available Java based implementation frameworks; Jersey, RESTEasy, RESTlet and the Struts Rest plugin. Full source code is provided on the Packt website to support the text, and this allows the reader to get involved without too much effort. Download locations for each of the open source components are also provided at the start of each technical chapter.

The Jersey JAX-RS framework is first up, and the author uses this opportunity to create a simple 3-tier RESTful web service (a Twitter like Application Programming Interface or API) that’s based on a bunch of reusable Java classes for business logic and data storage. The service API and classes are re-used later on with all the other frameworks in order to keep coding to a minimum and to allow the reader to focus on the salient points of RESTful service development with each framework. Techniques for RESTful API analysis and design are illustrated, demystifying how to correctly select the ‘resources’ that the service API will manipulate and the format of the service’s endpoints that clients will call to communicate with the service. Representation formats are also covered, with the author opting for the commonplace XML/JSON over HTTP. The sample service is developed using the JAX-RS annotations implemented by Jersey, with the HTTP GET, PUT, DELETE and POST methods all being adequately documented and explained.

Because of the distance covered, this first section is quite meaty, but you are left with a sense of just how easy implementing RESTul services can be, especially when you acknowledge that the majority of the code samples given are for the supporting application tiers rather than the RESTful service implementation.

RESTlet is next to be used, with version 1.1 and version 2.0 both being covered at the same time. As the same sample Twitter-like service is being implemented each time, the common code is re-used allowing the focus to remain on the specifics of the RESTlet framework. Version 1.1 of RESTlet appears fairly old-school in its approach, requiring the overriding of methods, while version 2 adopts a more modern annotation based approach. For me, the code samples now started to get a bit repetitive, and experienced readers may find themselves skipping forwards as they start to grasp the basics of each framework. The reuse of the sample code does help, and the author’s highlighting of the relevant bits ensures you don’t miss something important.

The RESTEasy framework presents the author with a dilemma because it implements the same JAX-RS specification as the Jersey framework covered earlier. The result is that the sample code is practically identical to the earlier Jersey example. The author chooses to deal with this problem by simply getting through the required information quickly and sticking to the defined scope of the book. This may please most readers, but its another missed opportunity as more could have been said about RESTEasy’s additional features like its support for ATOM feeds or EJB’s.

The Struts Rest Plugin is the last framework discussed in the book, and its a bit of an odd man out. Implementing the sample service API as specified presents a challenge to Struts as it doesn’t cope quite so well with RESTful concepts like content-negotiation. It also restricts the HTTP methods available to GET and POST. Therefore, the author explains how to work around these issues so that you can still implement a workable RESTful API even when your framework choice is restricted to Struts.

Finally, some ideas are offered on how to create embedded RESTful web applications where the web service is bundled in such a way that it can be started without the need for extensive installations or large web application containers. Basic security and performance strategies are also discussed in order to give the reader some ideas on how requirements like these can be achieved using REST.

Conclusions.

I enjoyed this book very much and it definitely delivers on its promise. The standard of the writing is very high throughout, and the content is well thought out, accurate and coherent. As ever, Packt’s short book format works a treat and allows the reader to get a good quality high level overview of RESTful service implementation very quickly in a way that it accessible to most Java developers. I really liked the fast pace but I still felt like I had had a good introduction to the principals of RESTful applications and how they differ from other Web Services technologies like SOAP. It also helped me to better understand the role that RESTful services can play in the wider SOA marketplace.

I do have a few small criticisms. I was disappointed that no indication was given as to which framework the author prefers and why, or which frameworks are best for implementing web services that best conform to the constraints of RESTful applications. My personal conclusion would be that either of the two JAX-RS frameworks would be the best choice, but I’d have liked to have had the benefit of the author’s experience.

I was also disappointed that some features and tools that I think are important failed to get a mention in the book, even though most readers would probably have benefited from having them brought to their attention. For example, no mention was made of WADL (the Web Application Description Language), which can document RESTful services in a way that can be very useful for clients and developers. Testing tools like SoapUI were also left out in the cold even though they are particularly useful thanks to their ability to act as generic service clients and assure service quality. Jersey’s ability to automatically marshal and un-marshal XML or JSON into JAXB Java objectswould also have saved a great deal of coding effort and String concatenation had it been used in the sample.

These are fairly small gripes, and they didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the book. If you are new to REST, be sure to familiarise yourself with these tools and techniques once you have understood the basics. However, in order to get that initial understanding, RESTful Java Web Services comes highly recommended.

About the reviewer:

Ben Wilcock is a freelance SOA Architect with a reputation for delivering good quality Service Oriented Architectures. You can read his blog at https://benwilcock.wordpress.com/ or contact him via his website at http://www.benwilcock.net/“