At the end of my recent Intro To Web Services – It Is All About The Message presentation, someone asked if I knew of any Web Services Contract First books. Although there are lots of books on building Web Services with Visual Studio, there are no books that I know of that show how to build web services in a contract first manner. Mostly it is because Visual Studio forces developers down the Code First approach, and therefore, most authors embrace this approach, which is unfortunate (but it does sound like a niche that some inspired author will fill).
But, if you want to learn the Web Services Contract First approach, I can recommend a couple books for you to pick up to help you down this path.
XML Schema – You can pick up either Priscilla Walmsley’s Definitive XML Schema
book or Eric van der Vlist’s XML Schema book, if you need to buy a book to learn XML Schema. Otherwise, if you already know a bit of XML Schema (or you don’t mind using all the free internet resources), I highly recommend Roger L. Costello’s XFront site, it’s XML Schema Tutorial and the XML Schemas: Best Practices.
Once you have learned XML Schema you will want to start the process of thinking in message oriented terms. As Aaron Skonnard mentioned a long time ago, Biztalk developers get Service Oriented Architecture and the Web Services Contract First methodology. Dan Rogers of Microsoft is the guy that started me down this path back in 1999/2000 with the Biztalk Jumpstart Toolkit. But, we aren’t trying to learn Biztalk, just the methodology. So, pick up Enterprise Integration Patterns : Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions by Gregor Hohpe and Bobby Woolf (one of Martin Fowler’s Signature Series books). Do not expect a book about web services, though. It is all about messaging solutions, and the various messaging design patterns, but it all applies to web services contract first, since it is the message that we are worried about here. Once you get thru that book, you can go on to David Pallmann’s Programming Indigo, and you will be surprise how much of the Enterprise Integration Patterns book applies to Indigo Windows Communication Framework and how Indigo Windows Communication Framework embraces the messaging approach to web services.
Once you start to grok all this, the beauty of Thinktecture’s WSCF (Web Services Contract First) plugin for Visual Studio, and how to take advantage of this methodology in your development architecture and best practices. But always remember, it really doesn’t matter if you use Code First or Contract First, as long as you are thinking Message First.
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