Small service is true service while it lasts

Abstract

Web services have been a recognized (albeit relatively minor) part of web development since the standardization of web service standards in the late 1990s. However, in the past three or four years, the adoption of simpler REST-based web services has dramatically increased the possible interoperability of web applications. As a consequence, a large number of real-world web sites now routinely integrate (or mashup) data from external sources using these services. This paper provides an overview of this new approach to development and describes a third-year web development course that heavily integrated a wide variety of web services into the student assignments. The paper identifies three main integration problems encountered by the students and concludes that this type of web development provides a realistic way to integrate "integration" into the IT curriculum. Copyright 2010 ACM.