Beep: The Definitive Guide: Developing New Applications for the Internet

by Marshall T. Rose

If you need to design a protocol that really fits your application, you want BEEP--an integrated collection of building blocks that gives you "best in class" data transmission solutions for everything from framing to security. Whether you're writing a simple "fetch" client/server application or a multi-threaded peer-to-peer relaying system, BEEP provides the necessary functionality without extra overhead. BEEP gives network developers what they've...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596002440
• ISBN13: 9780596002442
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 222 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

An excellent BEEP resource

This text is vital for anyone using BEEP, considering BEEP, or designing any sort of Internet protocol. This book is very well written, complete and easy to read. It's written by the man who invented the protocol, so you can be sure it's accurate. It starts with a conceptual overview of the BEEP protocol, including the all-important discussion of WHY the protocol does what it does, including what problems it solves for you and what problems it doesn't. It then covers three implementations of the protocol library (in Java, C, and Tcl), discussing the APIs of each, and giving the source for two different applications for each. In contrast, the BEEP RFCs give relatively little information on the motivation and intended use of the features, and the API documents assume you know where to start and why you would use each entry point.This text will tell you whether BEEP is right for your needs. If you decide to use BEEP, it's a vital companion to the technical API documentation and RFCs. Even though I implemented much of the C BEEP library, I found this book wonderfully helpful (even vital) for understanding the APIs in the other languages. It bridges the gap between the technical RFC and API documentation and the level of understanding you need to use that technical documentation effectively.

a great resource for savvy Internet application builders

Marshall Rose's latest book is a boon for two very different audiences: first and foremost, it is a guide to assembling Internet-aware applications based on his newest protocol called BEEP. Why bother with BEEP? Because it makes writing intelligent applications that function across the Internet easier, more secure, and more useful. Anyone who has tried to get a new application working between two computers behind two separate firewalls knows the frustrations involved, and BEEP is here to help with this and numerous other situations. This is not a typical O'Reilly book: there isn't much code, instead there is more pages devoted to the concepts and explanations of what Marshall was trying to do with BEEP and how you can make it work for you when you build your own applications. But it is a typical Marshall Rose book (Disclaimer: Marshall and I co-wrote a book on Internet email a few years back.) -- filled with wit, insight, lots of helpful information and above all well written and clear. There are chapters on implementations in Java, C, and tcl that help illustrate what you can do with BEEP. That doesn't mean that you can lift these code fragments and have a working prototype quickly -- but once you glom on to what he is doing with this stuff, you can build better applications and build them more quickly, more securely, and more reliably. Hopefully, the word will spread and the BEEP community will continue to grow and thrive.The second audience for this book is more obscure but equally important. Anyone trying to attempt to write a new protocol these days needs to know the roadmap of what they are up against, and Marshall's book is sort of a Hitchhiker's Guide to Writing New Internet Protocols. The elegance of design, the simplicity of function, and the single-minded purpose of such a feat is a joy to behold.