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I am an experienced web programmer that has sadly had little experience with Web Services and technologies like Silverlight - I've done a lot of PHP, Javascript, CSS and MySQL. I recently have been assigned to learn Silverlight and connect a new app to a MySQL database. After a full week of trying to get this working, I'm really hoping someone can answer these questions:

  1. I have found the MySQL .NET Connector - am I correct that this is not compatible with Silverlight and I do not need it?
  2. I understand I must use a Web Service for this. Can I use WCF or WCF RIA, or am I best using a more traditional web service method like REST or SOAP?
  3. What's the best web service method for many quick queries (such as updating a search as the user types in the keywords)
  4. Do I have to use technology like LINQ, Entity SQL, ADO.NET Framework, or a stored procedure? Is one of these the best way to do it or should I just skip them all and create a simple web service?
  5. What's the best source to learn how to do specifically Silverlight VB.NET and MySQL and learn to do it the best way as explained above. Everything I've found (books and websites) seems to be in C#, not a Silverlight product, or just uses built in SQL Server support. Very frustrating!
  6. For our web app, we need to be able to give the buyer not just access to our client side application via a browser but also the server side so they can OPTIONALLY host the entire product themselves. We're hoping to have one installer for them on their server (so they wouldn't have to set up php or mysql to host the product for example). If I use a VB.NET website and web service, will that deploy as just an exe or dll so the user won't have to install anything special? Is installing mysql on their servers unavoidable? Please advise.

Thank you!

dallin
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1 Answers1

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Wow, lots of questions in a single question.

  1. You can't use this from Silverlight.
  2. WCF and WCF RIA are both technologies while SOAP and REST are protocols that are both supported by WCF. So yes.
  3. Quick queries require good code and a well tuned database, the protocol won't be an issue.
  4. LINQ, Entity SQL, and ADO.Net are all database access technologies and have nothing to do with web services. You'll need to build a web service and then connect it to a database using some database access technology. Which one you use depends on what backend you have.
  5. C# is much more common. Most of the MSDN content has VB.Net as well. MySQL isn't an MS technology. You can use MySQL with Entity Framework and then expose that using WCF RIA Services.
  6. If you use VB.Net as the server side technology they will need to be running Windows with IIS and have .NET installed. They will also have to install MySQL if they want to host it.
Community
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Bryant
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  • Thank you! Yeah, I realize a lot of questions... probably a mistake. I thought 1-5 were almost the same question so it was ok. I tacked on 6 at the last second. But I think from how you've illuminated things that I'm not going to go with .NET for the back end simply because I can't guarantee customers will have Windows and IIS instead of Linux and Apache. That makes things a lot simpler as I can go back to PHP. Thanks! – dallin Mar 21 '12 at 23:33