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I don’t know “anything” about WebServices in Java and eventually I need to do some REST work in Java and well I want to strart learning it this weekedn d:) So my question is do I need to first learn Java web services before I can learn REST webservices? what are the prerequisites stack of knowledge I need to learn first? and your suggested resources.
Thanks
The Java Web Services stuff only have a small relationship with REST services.
Both are “remote services” for the web, so they share the same kind of problems: object representation, security, error handling, etc.
But you don’t need to learn the complexities of WS-* like service definitions (WSDL), SOAP… and a large list of stuff.
The small relationship between REST and WS in Java, comes when you want to “automatically” convert objects to XML or JSON. Because Java REST frameworks based on JAX-RS can do that by using JAXB (Java XML Bindings) an object conversion framework used also in the Java WS framework. But you don’t need to use that object conversion stuff either.
Some JAX-RS compatible frameworks -like Apache CXF-, can be used also to do JAX-WS (the Java standard API for WebServices). But note that general services frameworks like CXF, have to deal with other complexities (like support for different transports) that you don’t need to learn.
What you need to learn first?
Java Servlets: You don’t need to be an expert on servlets, but REST services are mounted over the Java servlets infrastructure and knowledge about it will help.
Dependency injection (DI): When you start doing REST resources that access to databases or other services, you’ll want to pass some collaborator objects to do that. Most of the frameworks resolves that problem by using DI. For example most of the JAX-RS frameworks can be used with Spring or Guice.
TIP: I found lots of people that uses Spring or Guice because.. tutorials shows that is the correct way to do it. But they don’t know what are trying to resolve, and end with complex unmaintainable stuff. My recommendation is that before using any DI framework, first learn the concepts behind them.
(Optional) A little bit of JavaScript and AJAX. If you plan to use the REST services from a web page, is good to learn how they are going to be used.
Edited: To include a mention to Apache CXF, and use the term JAX-RS instead of Jersey that is a specific implementation.