Behind 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 and protocols, 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.
