Know about REST services.

RESTFulness is the design pattern, that ensures that the client or server don't need to know anything before hand. There are other cases, in which there needs to be a handshake before the service can be consumed. Whereas in the REST services, you can simply send a request to the server and then get the data... Data can be parsed later on.

REST is really very much useful, because... Let's say, you want Android device to connect to your service that you provide through a .NET application. If that service or the design is not RESTful, then you would have to create client-server script, and then authenticate the client device before they can even start to call a function. However, in the REST environment, client does not need to know anything about server, and same for the server. This allows both ends to easily communicate. A good example of this is provided on this thread, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/671118/what-exactly-is-restful-programming

Finally, REST services enable the most powerful services building framework; ASP.NET Web API. In my own opinion, ASP.NET Web API is much better framework to be used instead of WCF today. WCF is SOAP-based, and Web API is REST based... Thus, Web API allows any device to be used, even a simple microcontroller, and you can send the data to the server without any hussle.

For example, to create a simple Web API to load and save the data for a Person database, you only need to write this,

/*
* Web API with ASP.NET Core framework
*/
namespace WebApplication.Controllers {
[Route("api/people")]
public class PersonApiController : Controller {
[HttpGet]
public List GetPeople() {
return DataStore.GetPeople();
}
[HttpPost]
[Route("add")]
public void SavePerson([FromBody] Person person) {
DataStore.SavePerson(person);
}
// Rest of the HTTP verbs.
}
}

Initially it looks a bit messy, but this is much more simpler as compared to the SOAP-based WCF application, because WCF would also need some configuration on the client-side, however REST APIs only require the devices to be network-enabled, and the communication is HTTP-based.

WCF has some good sides as well, it can work on multiple protocols too, and has a good feature-set, for API you have to build a lot of stuff yourself. But you need to work on both sides and learn some good skills.

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Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan9y ago
Accepted answer
RESTFulness is the design pattern, that ensures that the client or server don't need to know anything before hand. There are other cases, in which there needs to be a handshake before the service can be consumed. Whereas in the REST services, you can simply send a request to the server and then get the data... Data can be parsed later on.
REST is really very much useful, because... Let's say, you want Android device to connect to your service that you provide through a .NET application. If that service or the design is not RESTful, then you would have to create client-server script, and then authenticate the client device before they can even start to call a function. However, in the REST environment, client does not need to know anything about server, and same for the server. This allows both ends to easily communicate. A good example of this is provided on this thread, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/671118/what-exactly-is-restful-programming
Finally, REST services enable the most powerful services building framework; ASP.NET Web API. In my own opinion, ASP.NET Web API is much better framework to be used instead of WCF today. WCF is SOAP-based, and Web API is REST based... Thus, Web API allows any device to be used, even a simple microcontroller, and you can send the data to the server without any hussle.
For example, to create a simple Web API to load and save the data for a Person database, you only need to write this,
/*
* Web API with ASP.NET Core framework
*/

namespace WebApplication.Controllers {
    [Route("api/people")]
    public class PersonApiController : Controller {

        [HttpGet]
        public List GetPeople() {
            return DataStore.GetPeople();
        }

        [HttpPost]
        [Route("add")]
        public void SavePerson([FromBody] Person person) {
             DataStore.SavePerson(person);
        }

         // Rest of the HTTP verbs.
    }
}
Initially it looks a bit messy, but this is much more simpler as compared to the SOAP-based WCF application, because WCF would also need some configuration on the client-side, however REST APIs only require the devices to be network-enabled, and the communication is HTTP-based.
WCF has some good sides as well, it can work on multiple protocols too, and has a good feature-set, for API you have to build a lot of stuff yourself. But you need to work on both sides and learn some good skills.
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