Silverlight + smart client operations in one service?

Question

For my project's web services I want to support desktop clients and silverlight clients. Should I write a separate web service for each or put all the operations in one service? If I put them all in one, I have to go with basicHttpBinding. The winforms app uses wsHttpBinding now, what do I lose going with basicHttpBinding?

Answer 1

Use one web service with two endpoints, that would allow you to support basicHttpBinding as well as wsHttpBinding.

The difference between the two bindings is that basic is Soap 1.1 whereas ws is Soap 1.2 and WS-Addressing Specifications, in addition wsHttpBinding offers more security options

Answer 2

I very strongly recommend you read this thoroughly:

"Silverlight and WCF Feature Comparison"

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc896571(VS.95).aspx

There are quite a few gotchas when developing a web service for silverlight usage, especially if you already have a wsHttpBinding solution. Good luck!

EDIT: also I found this article useful:

WCF : BasicHttpBinding compared to WSHttpBinding at SOAP packet level http://geekswithblogs.net/claeyskurt/archive/2008/04/22/121508.aspx