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What Every Web Developer Should Know About HTTP

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HTTP is the protocol of the web, and this book will look at HTTP from a web developer's perspective. We'll cover resources, messages, cookies, and authentication protocols. We'll look at how HTTP clients can use persistent and parallel connections to improve performance,
and see how the web scales to meet demand using cache headers and
proxy servers. By the end of the book you will have the knowledge to
build better web applications and web services.

83 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 6, 2012

288 people are currently reading
333 people want to read

About the author

K. Scott Allen

13 books9 followers

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5 stars
247 (44%)
4 stars
207 (37%)
3 stars
77 (13%)
2 stars
24 (4%)
1 star
3 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
Profile Image for Ankush Chander.
28 reviews22 followers
March 22, 2022
No fluff, to the point crash course on http.
I personally liked author"s style to introduce key concepts without going too much in depth.

A must read for anyone who's getting onboarded into web development.
Profile Image for Rick.
31 reviews1 follower
September 23, 2020
Excellently Explained

I know a bit about the topic of the book already. But I really like the approach. It doesn’t get too bogged down by the use of complex sentence structures layered on top of the concepts which, for those not already familiar, could be confusing.

And for me, an excellent review.
Profile Image for Andrew George.
3 reviews2 followers
December 17, 2017
A good intro to the fundamental protocol

This was a good refresher on the HTTP protocol. I read it on a 3-hour flight. Howerver, the only thing missing was a discussion of JSON web tokens in the chapter on security.
3 reviews
January 24, 2021
Good book ..important but basic concepts covered

Every developer should know. Many basic aspects are covered which are often ignored by developers. More indepth on the preformance aspects specially is required
Profile Image for Ivan.
36 reviews2 followers
April 24, 2018
A "must to read" for ALL web developers! It basically helps you to understand how the web and your browser works ;)
7 reviews
August 7, 2025
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11 reviews
January 5, 2017
While the book is full of typos I found it to be easy to read and understand. It took a topic which I had limited knowledge of and gave me just enough information to research further the areas important to me.

Well worth the read if you have little to no understanding of the HTTP protocol.
Profile Image for Justin.
199 reviews44 followers
August 27, 2017
The bare minimum HTTP that a developer is require to know is more accurate title. I highly recommend this book altough I picked up much of this information the hard way through learning web frameworks. This would have saved me a lot of time and confusion.
Profile Image for Luísa Lima.
5 reviews1 follower
February 23, 2019
A nice yet superficial summary of HTTP

A brief overview of the protocol and associated technologies such as cookies, session management, security, etc. Wouldn’t use it as a reference but more as a way to quickly review main concepts.
Profile Image for Jozie Jewelz.
Author 1 book9 followers
August 31, 2020
Quick and easy to read.

Reading this book was a great way for me to refresh my memory about topics I had previously learned and forgotten, and also learn some new information. Very easy to understand and a great (relatively) quick read.
Profile Image for Gerardo Ornelas.
5 reviews
June 26, 2017
Refresh

The quick read is great as a refresher or to answer any questions that we ay have had. Good read.
Profile Image for Ivan.
22 reviews2 followers
October 30, 2017
A great an concise summary of everything I have wanted to know about the http. A perfect review and also some additional information I didn't know.
Profile Image for Youjiang Wu.
6 reviews
November 6, 2017
Useful for application developer

little book that provides an overview of http protocol, useful for an application developer. OpenID and oauth is not explained well.
Profile Image for Nissan Modi.
1 review
December 2, 2017
Great book for beginners.

Great book for beginners. The book provides a high level explanation of the HTTP protocol in a fairly simple language.
5 reviews
June 17, 2018
Concise and informative

Great book for someone learning the basics of http. Fast read, highly informative, and educational. Will keep it near to refer to it
19 reviews
November 10, 2018
Good refresher easy to read

Easy to read but covers only basics; ideal for newcomers or non technical users of HTTP|REST like analysts and managers
Profile Image for Kanke.
12 reviews
March 23, 2019
A must read for every developer, regardless of programming language

Handy book to read and finished under 3 hours. I highly recommend if you want to learn all about http.
3 reviews
January 12, 2021
Great explanations

Straight forward and simple explanation and well worth reading. Probably best suited to anyone starting to learn more about http requests, etc.
Profile Image for Haitham Gad.
8 reviews2 followers
December 4, 2021
Very basic introduction to HTTP

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.
Profile Image for Surattikorn.
117 reviews5 followers
November 26, 2022
Good book.

The information in this book provides a foundation that developers can use to develop, maintain, and debug web applications.
Profile Image for Maryam.
43 reviews9 followers
January 21, 2023
Super simple and to the point. Highly recommended for anyone starting to work in Web development.
Profile Image for Richard.
14 reviews
September 7, 2015
Great overview HTTP

K.Scott has put together a great collection of articles detailing HTTP. His writing style is clear and doesn't ever get over technical, even with a very technical subject like HTTP. highly recommended for anyone who wants to understand how HTTP works and especially for developers who need to understand.
104 reviews
October 19, 2015
I expected it to cover some additional material. At least, the succinct information it claims to give can be considered quite helpful.
If you're looking for architectural web design (meaning, some hints regarding it), look elsewhere. Only the HTTP protocol along with its technical aspects is covered here.
3 reviews
December 10, 2015
Generally, a good overview of HTTP. As a developer, I was looking for a deeper dive into "specifics" into how to take advantage of the web architecture. That's not what this is; if want an idea of how the web works, this is fine and concise.

Myself, I'd already picked up this information over the years, so I found myself skimming a lot.
Profile Image for Emad Mokhtar.
40 reviews20 followers
February 14, 2014
Every web developer must read this book, if you still didn't read it you're missing a lot on knowledge about HTTP and web development, I personally was missing these. Pease web developer if you want to start learn web development read this book.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews

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