JSON is becoming the backbone for meaningful data interchange over the internet. This format is now supported by an entire ecosystem of standards, tools, and technologies for building truly elegant, useful, and efficient applications. With this hands-on guide, author and architect Tom Marrs shows you how to build enterprise-class applications and services by leveraging JSON tooling and message/document design.

JSON at Work provides application architects and developers with guidelines, best practices, and use cases, along with lots of real-world examples and code samples. You’ll start with a comprehensive JSON overview, explore the JSON ecosystem, and then dive into JSON’s use in the enterprise.

• Get acquainted with JSON basics and learn how to model JSON data
• Learn how to use JSON with Node.js, Ruby on Rails, and Java
• Structure JSON documents with JSON Schema to design and test APIs
• Search the contents of JSON documents with JSON Search tools
• Convert JSON documents to other data formats with JSON Transform tools
• Compare JSON-based hypermedia formats, including HAL and jsonapi
• Leverage MongoDB to store and access JSON documents
• Use Apache Kafka to exchange JSON-based messages between services

Audience, Assumptions and Approach

This book is for architects and developers who design/implement web and mobile applications, RESTful APIs, and messaging applications. Code examples are in JavaScript, Node.js, Ruby on Rails, and Java. If you’re a Groovy, Go, Scala, Perl, Python, Clojure, or C# developer, you’ll need to follow along with the code examples provided. But rest assured that most major/modern languages provide excellent JSON support. For the architect, I’ve provided guidelines, best practices, and architecture and design diagrams where appropriate. But in addition to providing visionary leadership, real architects prove their ideas with working code. While I love working with JSON and writing code, it’s entirely meaningless without use cases, and a business and technical context. For developers, this book is packed with code examples, tooling, and Unit Tests, along with a GitHub repository (see 'Code Examples').

By reading and following this book’s examples, you’ll learn how to do the following:

• JSON basics and how to model JSON data
• Use JSON with Node.js, Ruby on Rails, and Java
• Structure JSON documents with JSON Schema to design and test APIs
• Search the contents of JSON documents with JSON Search tools
• Convert JSON documents to other data formats with JSON Transform tools
• Use JSON as part of an enterprise architecture
• Compare JSON-based Hypermedia formats, including HAL and json:api
• Leverage MongoDB to store and access JSON documents
• Use Apache Kafka to exchange JSON-based messages between services
• Use freely available JSON tools and utilities to simplify testing
• Invoke APIs in your favorite programming language with simple utilities and libraries

Table of Contents

Part I. JSON Overview and Platforms

Chapter 1. JSON Overview

Chapter 2. JSON in JavaScript

Chapter 3. JSON in Ruby on Rails

Chapter 4. JSON in Java

Part II. The JSON Ecosystem

Chapter 5. JSON Schema

Chapter 6. JSON Search

Chapter 7. JSON Transform

Part Ill. JSON in the Enterprise

Chapter 8. JSON and Hypermedia

Chapter 9. JSON and MongoDB

Chapter 10. JSON Messaging with Kafka

Appendix A. Installation Guides

Appendix B. JSON Community

Who This Book Is Not For

This book is not for you if your only interest in JSON is to make AJAX calls from JavaScript. Although I cover this topic, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Plenty of JavaScript books have the chapter you’re looking for.

Developers looking for a deep reference on REST, Ruby on Rails, Java, JavaScript, etc. won’t find it here. This book relies on these technologies, but focuses on how to use JSON with these languages and technologies.

About the Author

Tom Marrs is passionate about demonstrating the business value of technology. As an Enterprise Architect at TEKsystems Global Services, he leverages the enabling architectures and technologies that fuel the growing API Economy – REST, Microservices, and JSON. Tom has led enterprise-class API, Web, Mobile, Cloud, and SOA projects. An avid Agilist, Tom is a Certified Scrum Master and enjoys mentoring and coaching project teams.

In other JSON-related work, Tom wrote the Core JSON Refcard for DZone (the #1 downloaded Refcard in 2013). In a past life, Tom co-authored JBoss at Work for O’Reilly. Tom has also been a speaker at the OSCON, No Fluff Just Stuff (NFJS) and Great Indian Developer Summit (GIDS) conferences.