For More Information

1.10 For More Information

Later chapters of this book will explore HTTP in much more detail, but you might find that some of the following sources contain useful background about particular topics we covered in this chapter.

1.10.1 HTTP Protocol Information

HTTP Pocket Reference

Clinton Wong, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. This little book provides a concise introduction to HTTP and a quick reference to each of the headers and status codes that compose HTTP transactions.

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/

This W3C web page contains many great links about the HTTP protocol.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt

RFC 2616, "Hypertext Transfer ProtocolHTTP/1.1," is the official specification for HTTP/1.1, the current version of the HTTP protocol. The specification is a well-written , well-organized, detailed reference for HTTP, but it isn't ideal for readers who want to learn the underlying concepts and motivations of HTTP or the differences between theory and practice. We hope that this book fills in the underlying concepts, so you can make better use of the specification.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1945.txt

RFC 1945, "Hypertext Transfer ProtocolHTTP/1.0," is an informational RFC that describes the modern foundation for HTTP. It details the officially sanctioned and "best-practice" behavior of web applications at the time the specification was written. It also contains some useful descriptions about behavior that is deprecated in HTTP/1.1 but still widely implemented by legacy applications.

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/AsImplemented.html

This web page contains a description of the 1991 HTTP/0.9 protocol, which implements only GET requests and has no content typing.

1.10.2 Historical Perspective

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/WhyHTTP.html

This brief web page from 1991, from the author of HTTP, highlights some of the original, minimalist goals of HTTP.

http://www.w3.org/History.html

"A Little History of the World Wide Web" gives a short but interesting perspective on some of the early goals and foundations of the World Wide Web and HTTP.

http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Architecture.html

"Web Architecture from 50,000 Feet" paints a broad, ambitious view of the World Wide Web and the design principles that affect HTTP and related web technologies.

1.10.3 Other World Wide Web Information

http://www.w3.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the technology steering team for the Web. The W3C develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) for the evolving Web. The W3C site is a treasure trove of introductory and detailed documentation about web technologies.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt

RFC 2396, "Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax," is the detailed reference for URIs and URLs.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2141.txt

RFC 2141, "URN Syntax," is a 1997 specification describing URN syntax.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2046.txt

RFC 2046, "MIME Part 2: Media Types," is the second in a suite of five Internet specifications defining the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions standard for multimedia content management.

http://www.wrec.org/Drafts/draft-ietf-wrec-taxonomy-06.txt

This Internet draft, "Internet Web Replication and Caching Taxonomy," specifies standard terminology for web architectural components .