The history of .NET web frameworks

(incomplete)

ASP.NET shipped with .NET in 2002.
Now known as ASP.NET Web Forms.

Focused on websites. Windows developers felt at home with the event-driven model.

Not good for creating a Web API. In that regard, nothing much changed between version 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0.

Supported SOAP and the [WebMethod] attribute was a simple way to turn a method into a XML Web service. Declared legacy technology by Microsoft.

ASP.NET 3.0 (2006)

Windows Communication Foundation
could use ASP.NET to host services.

Almost nobody understood how.

ASP.NET 3.5 (2007)

ASP.NET AJAX - an attempt to modernize ASP.NET.

Had JSON serialization and some even succeeded to use jQuery against it.

WCF still cumbersome to use.

Not even headbeards liked WCF

PS. WCF in .NET Framework 4 is easier to use but it's still a big framework. DS.

ASP.NET MVC 1.0 (2009)

In 2004 Ruby on Rails was released and made it big. It was followed by several other frameworks (Django, FubuMVC, OpenRasta, Castle MonoRail) based on the MVC pattern.

An alternative to ASP.NET Web Forms.

ASP.NET MVC is a better fit for HTTP services than ASP.NET Web Forms.

Model-View-Controller

Do we really need MVC for HTTP services?

Could we do with something even simpler?

Even simpler frameworks

Sinatra, a lightweight Ruby framework, is often used to create RESTful APIs. It's a DSL for simple web applications.

require 'sinatra'

get '/hello/:name' do |name| 
  "Hello #{name}!"
end

Simple frameworks for C#

Nancy was inspired by Sinatra.

public class Module : NancyModule
{
    public Module()
    {
        Get["/hello/{name}"] = x => {
            return string.Concat("Hello ", x.name);
        };
    }
}

There's also Simple.Web, Manos, and more.

Sometimes these frameworks are a little bit too simple.

ASP.NET Web API

• A sub-project type of ASP.NET MVC 4.
• Content negotiation
• Serializes to JSON, XML, or other.
• Uses routing similar to ASP.NET MVC
• Can be self-hosted.
• Not instead of WCF.

Service Stack has similar properties.

Hanselman on ASP.NET Web API

Create an ASP.NET Web API project

File -> New -> Project

Create an ASP.NET Web API project

Web API

ASP.NET Web API template

public class ValuesController : ApiController
{
	// GET api/values
	public IEnumerable Get()
	{
		return new string[] { "value1", "value2" };
	}

	// GET api/values/5
	public string Get(int id)
	{
		return "value";
	}

	// POST api/values
	public void Post(string value)
	{
	}

	// PUT api/values/5
	public void Put(int id, string value)
	{
	}

	// DELETE api/values/5
	public void Delete(int id)
	{
	}
}

ASP.NET Web API template

public class RouteConfig
{
  public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
  {
    routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

    routes.MapHttpRoute(
      name: "DefaultApi",
      routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
      defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
    );

    routes.MapRoute(
      name: "Default",
      url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
      defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
    );
  }
}

API documentation

The default start page says nothing about your application, but that's easy to change.

Open the nuget console and run:

PM> Install-Package Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi.HelpPage -Pre

ASP.NET Web API Help Page

• Uses the IApiExplorer
• ApiExplorer ships with ASP.NET Web API
• Can use autogenerated XML documentation

ASP.NET Web API: Introducing IApiExplorer/ApiExplorer

Intro video

Default start page

ASP.NET Web API Help Page

ASP.NET Web API Help Page