Book to know more about XML Web Services in ASP.NET

Question

Hi all,

I am involved in a project with UI comprising mainly of Action Script. My role as an ASP.NET programmer is to pull data from DB using Web Services and supply it as XML to the Action Script.

It would help me immensely if I could learn more about XML Web Services in ASP.NET. I searched for a new book in this topic but couldn't find any book completely dedicated to the topic. I have found many books published at around 2002 or so. I would like to know whether there is a good new book that would be handy for my project. It would be better if they use 3.5 technologies like Linq to XML and all.

Thank you.

Answer 1

If you're only just starting to do web services in ASP.NET, I would strongly recommend you go and check out WCF. It's the current and future standard for communications between machines - web services and a lot more. The "old-style" ASMX web services are on their way out.

The book I always recommend to get up and running in WCF quickly is Learning WCF by Michele Leroux Bustamante. She covers all the necessary topics, and in a very understandable and approachable way. This will teach you everything - basics, intermediate topics, security, transaction control and so forth - that you need to know to write high quality, useful WCF services.

Also, I'd strongly recommend the Pluralsight series of WCF screen casts. I love books and they are great to read up on stuff - but sometimes, I find it easier to actually see someone show how to really code the thing and see it work and run. Highly recommended, 10-20 minute for each video, very informative and useful indeed!