"Windows offers many operating systems."

September 26, 2010 8:30 AM

I am going to be teaching a class on implementing web services in the summer. Help me out.

The book my department currently uses for this class is this. It's a disaster. Mistakes in the first page, not updated to use current methods (sites-available, sites-enabled).

I need a textbook.

Well, technically, I just need a book – but I haven't been able to find one that's reasonably well regarded. I have some flexibility; I can write exercises for a good "tutorial" book, if need be. I can teach another open source server like nginx.

I just need something that doesn't make me cringe when I read it.

posted by sonic meat machine to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Have you looked at O’Reilly’s offerings on the subject? Those guys are pretty much the resource for books on programming and systems administration.
posted by spitefulcrow at 9:18 AM on September 26, 2010

Response by poster: I have, spitefulcrow, but O'Reilly's Apache books are surprisingly out of date or of the wrong type. ('Pocket References' are awesome, but I can't teach a class out of them.)
posted by sonic meat machine at 9:53 AM on September 26, 2010

Are you teaching a class on web services (which makes me think of SOAP, REST etc.), or a class on web servers?
posted by robertc at 12:24 PM on September 26, 2010

Response by poster: The class is ill-defined by state standards, but our department treats it as a server class. No options there; this class has no programming prerequisites and no companion pieces to make the "services" moniker actually fit.
posted by sonic meat machine at 12:41 PM on September 26, 2010

Would Apache Cookbook be too haphazard for a course book, or is that one of the O'Reilly books you've already considered? It generally gets much better reviews than the definitive guide book, but mostly I refer to the apache.org docs when I'm trying to figure out how to do something so I've not read a lot of books on this.
posted by robertc at 1:35 PM on September 26, 2010

Response by poster: Too haphazard. These students start with no knowledge.
posted by sonic meat machine at 3:37 PM on September 26, 2010

Can you be more explicit about your requirements here? What does "no knowledge" mean? Any Java skills at least? What is the point of the course, exactly? Are you teaching to a standard test? Is there lab time? etc.
posted by kryptonik at 7:25 AM on September 27, 2010

Response by poster: The course has no prereqs. I assume some basic familiarity with Linux because, well, I have to. I teach what a web server is, how the web works, and how to configure a web server.

It's not a fantastic class, but it's what I've got.
posted by sonic meat machine at 11:27 AM on September 27, 2010