more webhooks and the programmable web

I will be doing a presentation at barcamp orlando tomorrow.  For those who do not know about Webhooks, here is a brief overview.

Before I start, you should know that webhooks does not involve any particular technology.  It does not matter if you use PHP, C++, Ruby, DotNET, C-sharp, or any such language or system.  If you program for the web this is something you should know about.

Second, as a technology, it is easy to implement.  This is especially true if your software triggers on events and sends emails today.  In terms of technical difficulty, webhooks are very similar.

And now back to our regular programming.

If you are with me, I said webhooks are similar to sending email that triggers on events.  This is the difference. Instead of sending an email, you will send an HTTP POST.  “Hold on there” you say.  It cannot be that easy.

Webhooks are so simple it you’ll think it’s stupid

That’s the latest from Jeff Lindsay (Twitter: @progrium). http://blog.webhooks.org/

Webhooks are not rocket science.  It is their application in such a broad way that makes them valuable.  The way it works is that an application has an event happen.  This could be something like a task gets updated.  It then sends a message to a URL behind which sits a small piece of code.  That piece of code has to respond to the message in any way it wants.  The application that triggered the event does not care what the code does.  That is why the language it’s written in does not matter.  Use Ruby, PHP, DotNet, PERL, C-Sharp or whatever programming language you want.

The value of this really comes to light when you consider connecting up several different applications to make a super system comprised if several parts.

I hope you take the time to learn more about webhooks.  Years from now, these should be taken as matter of fact.