Chapter 16: Putting It All Together

Overview

Throughout this book’s chapters, you have created a wide range of web services, which you have then called using Visual Basic .NET and C# programs as well as from ASP.NET pages and HTML files. In this chapter, you will build a complete application using web services. The solution you will build is a job locator at which employees can post resume information and employers can post information about available jobs.

Across the Web, many sites such as HotJobs.com or Monster.com post hundreds of thousands of job opportunities. By building the Jobs web service, you can provide a solution that companies can use within their own sites. Employment companies, for example, might use a similar service to offer greater services to both job seekers and employers. Local newspapers can integrate a similar service into their Help Wanted and Careers sections.

You may be thinking to yourself that you would never build a website that stores employee resumes and job postings. As it turns out, the techniques you will examine in this chapter are well suited for a wide range of web solutions. You might, for example, use the techniques to create a website that sells products (cars, boats, computers, and so on), organizes club memberships, manages key-personnel schedules, and more.

The Jobs web service will exercise many of the key functions you have examined throughout this book, such as security, the transfer of binary data, and so on. As you examine this chapter, think of ways you can expand the web service to support other opportunities.