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It seems that most of the new kids on the block are using RESTful web services rather than SOAP. I've only dabbled in them enough to know the basics of how they work.

Essentially in a SOAP implimentation, you are able to use a WSDL file that describes data types as well as usable RPC's. Finding a WSDL file and simply adding it as a service reference in visual studio is awesome and easy to impliment.

In a REST web service you have one (or more, depending on overrides) method for each action you are wanting to take (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE). While I can see how this would be beneficial, I can see problems with this... such as still having to deserialize into a local object.

So my question is... can you actually get intellisense when consuming REST web services? When you add a service reference to a WSDL you are able to see the list of usable methods. Otherwise, is the only way to actually see the usable methods through documentation? Is there any "self-containing" document that describes to VS what you can use and/or how to interpret data types without having to deserialize/serialize.

Brandon Clapp
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  • Have you seen http://stackoverflow.com/questions/76595/soap-or-rest-for-web-services? REST has nothing like WSDL. – John Saunders Dec 18 '12 at 22:40
  • Also see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13913264/in-soap-there-is-wsdl-for-communication-but-in-rest-what-is-there/13918160#13918160 – Eugene Osovetsky Dec 19 '12 at 06:03
  • Your comment regarding the methods available at an endpoint, you can see the available methods at an endpoint usually using an `options` method. Making this request using an `options` method will usually return a response header like: Allow: GET,HEAD,POST,DELETE – Carl Owens Dec 19 '12 at 12:04

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