The following is a short interview with Succinctly series author Gaurav Arora, whose latest book, ASP.NET WebHooks Succinctly, was published recently. You can download the book here.
What should people know about the subject of your book? Why is it important?
Simply put, it is a means of wiring up any Web APIs with SaaS services. It is an HTTP implementation in a pub/sub model. The proven simplicity of this technology has prompted a large number of services, including Dropbox, GitHub, Bitbucket, MailChimp, PayPal, Slack, Stripe, and Trello, to expose WebHooks for their services.
When did you first become interested in this subject?
While executing a large web services-based project, it became quite evident that the lack of feedback from the services was affecting the overall design we had in mind. What was required, in essence, was a simple way of getting feedback without the complex plumbing. Hence, our use of WebHooks over HTTP began.
By writing this e-book, did you learn anything new yourself?
Yes. During the process of writing this e-book, I learned the Python language. This was during the creation of WebHooks for Zendesk.
How will this subject change over the next few years?
I personally see this going a long way in the same direction and becoming even more widely accepted. The work that I have planned in this cannot be termed as a change, but rather an addition of more features. I am sure this will make this even more beneficial for the community. This technology is already deeply pervasive in the current scenario. Some good examples of upcoming additions could be Azure functions, Azure Alerts, etc.
Do you see the subject as part of a larger trend in software development?
Yes, definitely. There is no doubt that as this technology further progresses, there is a very high probability that this technology is going to stay for a long time to come. The small footprint of this technology makes its implementation easier for everyone.
What other books or resources on this topic do you recommend?
There is one specific book that comes to my mind that I can recommend. It’s Syncfusion’s e-book for ASP.NET MVC (https://www.syncfusion.com/ebooks/aspnet_mvc_succinctly). This would further enhance users’ knowledge and their grip on the topic.