I'm working on an .Net application in which a user can either use a Xamarin Android app or a web application to use the system. I would like to put all the business logic at one place and both the applications shall use it.
Considering that I have "NO" experience in Web APIs or Services, how shall I design my application?
However, I'm ready to learn both (Web APIs or Services) if required for the implementation.
Considering that I have "NO" experience in Web APIs or Services, how
shall I design my application?
The question should rather be, do you need to call some external services, or can you do everything locally on the phones? If some external services are required, you need web API call from your different platforms. The business logic goes in your API.
If everything can be done locally, you can just share your client side code.
As you probably know, Xamarin app's usually follow a MVVM architecture.
It does not mean the business logic must be in the sharing ViewModels (I actually wrote a blog post about that if it you want more information).
The business logic must be in the domain models, and possibly some services.
Thus, in the end you can share the c# code of your domain models and business services between your xamarin app and your web application.
Hope it helps.
Related
I have an existing JHipster microservices web app with Angular frontend and Consul service discovery.
I have created a gateway and one microservice with Java, Spring, and Hibernate. Everything works fine.
WHAT I WANT
I want to add one more microservice with a different programming language, such as .Net and C#
QUESTION
Is it possible? How do I achieve this?
Yes it's possible as long as your other services are able to integrate into your existing infra structure:
by registering in Consul and reading their configuration from Consul too
validating gateway's authentication token
forwarding their logs to your centralized logging system (e.g ELK)
exposing their metrics to your monitoring system (e.g. Prometheus)
As JHipster uses quite common technologies, it should not be too hard.
We have the following structure on our project in order to get data.
Acces to Database Using Entity Framework
ProjectName.DAL
Services that call Entity Framework.(UoW)
ProjectName.Service
Our Actions inside Controllers call Services and return data needed.
ProjectName.Web
The Question:
Our services take info directly with Entity Framework, What are the advantages and disadvantages about creating WebServices in order to replace the connection with EF? "In that case only WebServices will have access to Entity Framework,"
ProjectName.DAL
ProjectName.WebServices
ProjectName.Service
ProjectName.Web
The main advantage is that you would have a more decoupled design.
By exposing your DAL through web services you "disconnect" it from your frontend. For example, a mobile app, a web app and a WPF desktop app could all access your DAL through the same web services. So you can reuse your DAL accross different apps which can save you a lot of development time. Have a look at ServiceStack and advantages of its web services.
Disadvantages? Having to do some additional development work and testing. If your app is a simple and will not be used in different environments it may be overkill to use web services.
Disadvantages:
Web services tend to consume more resources from your server than just a plain CLR (aka dll) layer in your project.
whatever web service you plan to use (legacy web services, service stack, wcf, Web API, etc) you'll find that all of them have to use a process to serialize the data and it could be the case that you'll need to do the inverse process in your front end application.
you have to design your ws very carefully because you have to think how you're going to expose those services and the level of encapsulation/abstraction you will have to put in place, a bad design in a web service layer definetely will be a headache for you during development and production.
Security: In most cases you will have to validate every input in those web services as well
Advantages
well that's very relative to call an advantage, it depends more on what are your app requirements, some questions you need to answer are like the following:
Do I need to share data with other apps (mobile, desktop, other web
apps)?
Do I need to expose some functionalities to other business (third
parties)?
Recomendation
If you plan to do a CRUD application I'll recomend to go with REST definetely is the best option due to it's architecture (POST,DELETE,GET,ETC).
if you don't need you a web service right now, you can try to develop your service layer kind of like a service implementation in service stack but try to remain as POCO as possible and if for some reason you'll need a web service you can try to refector the service layer intead to have another level of indirection in the middle.
just my two cents...
I am developing an android application to accommodate some desktop software that I created. I would like for the user of the mobile app to have to verify their identity through authentication. Basically the web service will have to act as a central hub to both authenticate and hold information that the android app will need. The way I think it should work is to
-Set up a central web service
-Allow user to create account from desktop client using email/password
-The desktop client will send the information to the webservice that the android app will need.
-when android app is authenticated it will then retrieve the data it needs that was posted from the client.
So basically the service will need to be able to send and receive data.
I will only be using .net (either C# or vb.net ) for the service, so this leads me to a couple of questions:
Should I be using WCF for this? If so should I create a WCF Service library or WCF Service application?
Should I be using the Sign Sign on service approach?
The web service doesn't need to be fancy it just needs to get the job done. Is their any boilerplate project templates or projects out their I could use to help build a foundation?
I recently discovered SudzC.com which generates classes and methods for Objective-C from the wsdl data of a .net web service, and I'm fairly sure it also does Android.
I have a huge catalog of fairly 'old' web services which pre-date WCF and they are currently working perfectly.
I should point out though that the SudzC service only shows you what it can do for you for free - to get the code you have to pay ~£20 for a one year pass.
We had something similar where I worked. We had to put together an Android app for the company. If you are on .net 4.0 or newer, you can take advantage of theWebApi. It can return json or xml. So, that means any platform can utilize it (desktiop, android, etc...). I found it extremely easy to use, with very little overhead.
I'm just starting a project where I would like to use Kendo UI (based on jquery) with C#. A few weeks ago I was successful in handling requests using Web Services (asmx), was pleased with the results and performance, and was able to create forms quickly.
Since this is a new project, I thought I could look into different concepts such as MVC and WebApi. I found MVC to be the most complicaded so I went for WebApi and started playing with controllers and requests. So far what I'm finding (don't judge me, I'm new to these new concepts), is that Web Service seems to be simpler and more flexible.
So I guess what I'm looking for is... what are the main advantages of using MVC vs WebApi and even vs Web Services. Are there any downsides to Web Services? Would it be a bad practice to have my data layer controlled by Entity Framework, all models defined, and my requests handled by Web Services?
Any clarifications are welcome. Thank you.
In a broader sense, Web API is used to create Web Services ! It uses HTTP as its standard for creating services (instead of SOAP like in asmx) as its more open and any type of client like a mobile app, desktop app, web app etc will understand HTTP protocol. Another advantage is that u can easily use JavaScript/jQuery to communicate with your Web API. With SOAP web services, its a nightmare!
Kendo UI and Web API is a great combination. We have recently created a mobile iPad app using this combination and it worked like a charm. We also used Entity Framework with oracle as back end DB and it never gave any issues.
Webservices are nice if you have the need for it. A need as in needing that logic/data in more than one different type of application (such as web, and a mobile app, and a desktop app). (Or if you want to sell the service you're providing)
Using a webservice for ONLY a website which you don't except to expand to other things is complete overkill.
Furthermore, the MVC framework and the Web Api framework are pretty similar except web api is used exclusively for webservices. Coding in both of them will be the difference between white bread and wheat bread.
I have to pass information from a desktop application to Web application and vice versa.
What are the best practices that are regularly used?
Currrently I'm using Asp.Net and a Winforms.
To pass data to Web Site im creating a (POST) WebRequest and posting an xml to the site.
To pass data to Application im using .Net Remoting from Asp.net
(I'm using Winforms is an adminstration and monitoring application.)
Edit: Lets treat it as a generic web app and winforms.
Also currently both Web app and Winforms are on the same machine.(but can change).
Web Services or Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) would be your best bets for remote interoperability.
On your website, expose some service end points and consume them from your desktop app. Then send messages as you require.
I'd look hard at the design of the system and consider whether it's necessary to use a Winforms application at all for monitoring and administration. No, really: creating rich Web sites is quite straightforward (if necessary, with technologies like AJAX) and the architecture of the resulting application will be much, much simpler.
And, of course, deployment is then really simple.
I am not sure if there is a best practice for what you are trying to accomplish. There might be some security concerns you have to think about when allowing posts to your web application however. It would be very easy for a potential attacker to manipulate the post data and send it to your web application. You should consider using web services or Windows Communication Foundation.
Register a custom handler like how Real player registers rstp:// or for that matter web browsers register http://