Java Web Services: Up and Running, 2nd Edition

JSON for JavaScript Clients

JavaScript clients, often written in a dialect such as jQuery, are now a major force in RESTful web services. Gone are the bad old days when a browser downloaded a page generated on the server and did no further client-side processing. A modern website typically integrates client-side and server-side processing to serve the overall goal of high performance combined with professional look and feel, and JavaScript—in a sense broad enough to encompass languages/frameworks such as Dojo, Enyo, Meteor, midori, jQuery, and SmartClient—is the dominant language for client-side processing.

At one time, the data displayed on a HTML page typically came from a database through a server-side application down to a browser. Web services are now a prevalent source of data, a source accessible directly from a client-side script embedded in an HTML page. Data flows into an HTML page need not originate, at least not immediately, in a server-side application connected to a database. These changes further blur the distinction between websites and web services because the HTML pages that remain a key part of any website embed scripts that can act as web service clients. Pioneering JavaScript frameworks such as Meteor aim at virtually collapsing the difference between client-side and server-side functionality by allowing client-side scripts direct access to a server-side database. These changes and trends together open new possibilities for web services and their clients; these ...