Adjoovo Trestle

Adjoovo Trestle is a free tool that allows developers to explore and test REST services defined using the WADL standard.

The need for WADL

Many developers consider WSDL and web services to have become too complex for many situations and have instead begun to use REST where that complexity is not required. REST's simple approach works well when working with a small number of services but as the number of services grows, understanding each service becomes a manual documentation task.  Enter WADL, a standard for describing REST services that many REST frameworks, such as Sun's Jersey, can automatically generate.

By distributing a WADL file these definitions can be both formalised and centralised, which allows developers to build up a library of available services without having to find and refer to the publisher's documentation whenever they need to use it.

Crucially, WADL retains the spirit of REST's simplicity and does not include the complexities typically associated with WSDL such as XML Schema and many WS-* standards.

About Adjovoo Trestle

Built originally as a plugin for Adjoovo Spaces, we thought it useful enough to separate out as a standalone tool.  Trestle is comprised of a self-contained metadata registry in which the WADL data is stored, and a web UI for importing, exploration and testing and REST services.