A group of Microsoft Products and technologies used for sharing and managing content, knowledge, and applications.
Hi David,
I have to say that your needs are really up to date very much. Actually Microsoft are working on the SharePoint REST service that is a new feature.
As far as I know, currently, developers can do Create, Read, Update, and Delete operations using REST web technologies, but the pity is that SharePoint REST service hasn't supported setting alerts yet.
You can click Here for details about Get to know the SharePoint REST service.
Hope the related function will be released quickly and you can post your requirement to SharePoint UserVoice to express your feeling.
Regards,
Eric