What Every Web Developer Should Know About HTTP (OdeToCode Programming Series Book 1) Kindle Edition

This book is a fast way to fill gaps while becoming a full stack developer. I admire the work of Scott Allen and I am very sorry that he won't be teaching and writing books. What a tragic loss for the developer community.

Anyone who creates websites, particularly ones requiring security, should know at least the basics of HTTP. This ubiquitous and simple protocol essentially runs the entire Internet using simple text messages transmitted between web servers and other proxies. Beneath all that web application code and ASP.NET session objects, HTTP sends the messages that make the world wide web work. The aptly titled, "What Every Web Developer Should Know About HTTP" will give anyone fundamental knowledge on this critically important protocol. Its main audience remains beginners throughout, so experienced developers likely won't learn a great deal. Regardless, those needing a refresher will find an easy to follow review.This small book covers a slew of topics, including URL structure, "%" encoding, MIME, HTTP request and response messages (focusing on GET and POST), HTTP status codes, numerous HTTP headers, the POST/redirect/GET pattern, connections with TCP and the communication stack layers, parallel and persistent connections, proxy servers (forward and reverse), caching (public and private), cookies, (session and persistent), authentication protocols (basic, digest, windows, forms, OpenId) and HTTPS. Some sections also delve into the trade-offs and issues with choosing one direction over another (everything is a trade-off in the end). Cookies have definite downsides, for example. They can provide an easy built-in state tracking technique, but not handling them correctly could lead to Cross Side Server Scripting vulnerabilities (XSS). Data stored in cookies, again, if not handled efficiently, may actually sit exposed to malicious eyes. HTTPS, though unavoidable in any secure development situation, does have performance ramifications. The book covers all of these topics and more in at least a high-level fashion. Best of all, most will finish it in one or two readings.Developers should quickly move beyond this material as their careers progress. By itself, it doesn't provide enough information to deeply troubleshoot HTTP issues, though it does point to useful tools such as Fiddler and WireShark. It will make more detailed books and websites more accessible. And after inhaling all of the information here, new developers should jump right into more extensive and intricate technical sources. The more one knows about HTTP the better one can uncover those annoying and difficult to trace problems that inevitably arise with today's more complex web development frameworks and platforms. Start, but don't end, here.

Simple to read, easier to grasp and with perfectly chosen examples to help you understand the points. Really good book to have a quick idea of those things you thought you knew but in fact, you did not quite so.

Exactly what I needed to know: the big picture. From here I have an understanding of context of the details as I learn them.

Gives a decent introduction to HTTP/1.1 but doesn't go into too much detail of the protocol and is kinda outdated. Doesn't cover HTTP/2 or HTTP/3.

If you're a web developer, you should take a look at this book. I'm a recent grad and have been developing websites for 3 years now, and there is some information that I was able to pick up from this book that I either had a basic idea of, or just didn't know entirely.The book itself is very short and can be finished in just a few hours, especially if you are familiar with a lot of the concepts already, but it also makes for a good reference if you need to brush up on certain concepts.Like others have said, this book only briefly goes over many topics(hence why it is only 80 pages), but after reading this, you should be able to dive into more advanced books with ease, and at the very least have a solid understanding of how data is transmitted through the web.

After I've read the book, I could only wish I had it the moment I started web development. Even after going through Flask tutorials, different blogs, some sporadic blog articles, slashing through RFCs, and such for a whole year, I still haven't had a clear overview of what's going on, and this book changed it for the better.What I find most tedious in my professional carrier is to pass the threshold when learning something new. That threshold divides the state of being productive (thus, having fun), and the state of trying to wrap my head around new conceptual landscape, and with crazy schedules it's really hard to give oneself enough time to chew on a subject. I believe this book is a really effective shortcut to surpassing that threshold.One other reason I chose this book is because it contains only transferable knowledge, which is quite important for anyone on a tight schedule with some sense for self-development planning. There is only one working code example written in C# which I could easily translate to Java and Python. Everything else is a mix of concepts, best practices, and well-chosen technical details.

I'll be honest. I bought this book because it was cheap and short, with the notion that if I didn't like it - I'd only be out a few dollars and very little of my precious time. And to my surprise, it was exactly what I was looking for. If I were to write a high-level book about http, this would be it. The book was concise with enough detail to be complete. Not a word was wasted and I am thankful. Some writers would have taken the opportunity to pad the text with anecdotes and tangents just to make us feel like we're getting our money's worth in terms of page count. Not so with this book.Also, given the simplicity of the protocol, I think many developers (non-web) make assumptions about it from what they've gleaned over the years without actually sitting down and putting those assumptions to the test. If you fall into that category, do yourself a favor and read this book.

I really loved the simple ideas presented in the book. The book is short but at the low price is well worth adding to your library if you are new to HTTP. This book won't make you a master by any means but it gives you the facts in simple easy to understand terms and gets you to a point where you are then be able to ask what questions you need of yourself going forward and gives a good grounding and starting of point for further studies. Recommended reading sometimes short precise clear info is all you need. Yes the information is available for free across various websites but to have it laid out so simply in one place just perfect.

I though I knew enough about HTPP to get by but a recent job required me to know a bit more detail. I found this book to be very readable and it filled in the gaps in my knowledge. It is a fairly short book, but well written and provides comprehensive coverage of the subject. (It's also relatively inexpensive.)If you are designing or using web APIs, web services, or just want to understand more about how the Internet works, this book should prove useful to you.

Compact but excellent guide to key aspects of this language / protocol. Nothing you can't dig out of the Web for free, but why bother when it's all here, very nicely packaged up, highly accessible, well organised, written by a "been there, done that" type and includes a few extra bits which are good to know. Excellent small book - buy / read / understand :-)

Recommended reading for anyone developing and configuring web apps, whether internet or intranet. This book focuses on HTTP so there’s no discussion of languages or frameworks.

In the end, that's a good read on HTTP related aspects, only that it is quite short in details. It's a good book to get a grasp on the big image of HTTP, so that you know what is all about. I liked, especially, the Web authentication related chapter.