Product DescriptionBehind every web transaction lies the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) --- the language of web browsers and servers, of portals and search engines, of e-commerce and web services. Understanding HTTP is essential for practically all web-based programming, design, analysis, and administration.
While the basics of HTTP are elegantly simple, the protocol's advanced features are notoriously confusing, because they knit together complex technologies and terminology from many disciplines. This book clearly explains HTTP and these interrelated core technologies, in twenty-one logically organized chapters, backed up by hundreds of detailed illustrations and examples, and convenient reference appendices. 'HTTP: The Definitive Guide' explains everything people need to use HTTP efficiently -- including the 'black arts' and 'tricks of the trade' -- in a concise and readable manner.
In addition to explaining the basic HTTP features, syntax and guidelines, this book clarifies related, but often misunderstood topics, such as: TCP connection management, web proxy and cache architectures, web robots and robots.txt files, Basic and Digest authentication, secure HTTP transactions, entity body processing, internationalized content, and traffic redirection.
Many technical professionals will benefit from this book. Internet architects and developers who need to design and develop software, IT professionals who need to understand Internet architectural components and interactions, multimedia designers who need to publish and host multimedia, performance engineers who need to optimize web performance, technical marketing professionals who need a clear picture of core web architectures andprotocols, as well as untold numbers of students and hobbyists will all benefit from the knowledge packed in this volume.
There are many books that explain how to use the Web, but this is the one that explains how the Web works. Written by experts with years of design and implementation experience, this book is the definitive technical bible that describes the 'why' and the 'how' of HTTP and web core technologies. 'HTTP: The Definitive Guide' is an essential reference that no technically-inclined member of the Internet community should be without.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Great product
Very clear & easy to understand / logical / informative / well planned
Rating: - Truly Definitive
Here's my advice: review the book's contents (you'll need to visit O'Reilly's site at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/httptdg/). Do you need a complete understanding of the topics? If so, buy this book. Everything is clearly explained in detail, with the chapters on security and internationalization being especially good. Highly recommended!
Rating: - Lots of Facts, Poor Focus
This book has much of interest, and reads easily, with lots of pictures and lots of repetition. But it probably served me better than it would have someone who came to it to learn to use HTTP in Web programming. I cared more about the overviews of routers and servers and such, and the conceptual issues involving HTTP -- what it is and how it works. But to actually use it I would want some examples -- even just one example. Instead, we get a couple of random programs -- a mini-server in PERL, and ... Read More
Rating: - Best book on HTTP I've come across
This book is worth more than its weight in gold. The authors do a phenomenal job of describing the HTTP protocol in an interesting and accessible way. Throughout the book their immense experience with the protocol shines through. For anyone working in the field of web acceleration, caching, load balancing, etc, I can't recommend this book highly enough. BUY IT!
Rating: - Manque d'information
Ce livre manque de contenu et l'auteur se répète beaucoup (ne vous laissez pas impressioner par le nombre de pages). En fait, il y a beaucoup d'information assez générale, mais à mon avis pas suffisamment pour développer un serveur, par exemple. En particulier, il n'y a pas d'information (ou presque!) concernant les POST. Un "oubli" quelque peu surprenant pour un ouvrage de cette envergure. ----- Very few information about form submission.
- Great product
- Lots of Facts, Poor Focus
