HTTP: The Definitive Guide

I had always wondered what the “understanding of the HTTP protocol” item, listed among the qualifications in job postings, actually meant. I’ve been developing with HTTP for well over a decade now, so what more could there possibly be to learn? It was probably this arrogant attitude that made it take nearly three years to finish this book after I bought it. In the end, even for an experienced developer, this book proved more than worth the read. It would have been even better had I been able to read it back when I was a junior, but I think you can still gain fresh insights from it even after you’ve built up some experience. Take, for example, things like this: what is the difference between a gateway and a proxy? It’s ambiguous. But depending on its role, the very same thing can be called one or the other. Even on a second read it remains a puzzling story, but in the world of engineering, that’s just how it can be.

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