WCF Services—Programming Model

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WCF Services Requirements § Install .NET 3.0 Development Service Contracts § Contract First or Code? Service Design Programming Model "Hello, World" "Hello, World" with Interfaces Hosting on IIS ServiceContract Attribute OperationContract Attr. ServiceBehavior Attribute OperationBehavior Attr. Data Contracts § Summary

© 2007 Chris Peiris, Dennis Mulder

Programming Model

So, Table 4-3 compares WCF’s programming model to ASP.NET 2.0 web services and WSE.

Table 4-3. Attribute Programming Model Comparison

ASP.NET 2.0 Attribute	WCF Attribute	Comments
[WebServiceAttribute]	[ServiceContractAttribute]	Interface, class-level attribute
[WebMethodAttribute]	[OperationContractAttribute]	Method-level attribute
	[DataContractAttribute]	Class-level attribute
	[DataMemberAttribute]	Field, property, event-level attribute

You probably noticed the name change from web-oriented naming to more SOA nomenclature—Service, Operation, and Data. This was done intentionally to shift the architectural thinking from a web-only mentality to an "any transport" paradigm.

WSE 3.0 provides the ability for different transports in addition to supporting more complex message exchange patterns such as duplex channels (through the ISoapDuplexChannel interface). WCF now provides a much more simplistic model for implementation in addition to a fully extensible framework along with support for WS-* specifications such as WS-Transactions, WS-Reliability, and others.