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Introduction to Services

3:01 with James Churchill

Let's start with an introduction to services and an overview of what you'll learn in this course.

Prerequisites

To get the most out of this course, you should understand the basics of REST APIs and be familiar with C#, ASP.NET MVC, Entity Framework, and Visual Studio. For more information about those topics, check out these Treehouse courses and workshops:

Service Types

  • 0:00

    [MUSIC]

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    [SOUND] Hi, my name is James.

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    In earlier Treehouse content, we've seen how ASP.NET can be used to create

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    web applications containing server side rendered user interfaces, or UIs.

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    These applications allow users to work with data, execute steps in a work flow,

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    or monitor automated processes.

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    This is a common use case for ASP.NET, but

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    ASP.net can also be used to create applications that expose data in

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    processes through application programming interfaces, or APIs.

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    These applications or

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    services are typically implemented using public standards or guidelines.

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    That makes it easier for third parties or

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    developers to understand how to consume and use our services.

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    Services give us a way to decouple our back end from our front end.

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    Front end clients don't need to know all the implementation details of the service.

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    They only need to understand how to work with the service's API.

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    Separation between the back end and the front end makes it easy for

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    our services to support multiple front end clients, or

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    even to integrate with other services enabling machine to machine communication.

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    Services are not a new idea.

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    The origins of proprietary computer to computer communication protocols,

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    known as remote procedure calls, or RPC, date all the way back to the 1970s.

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    And in the early 2000s, developers combined HTTP and

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    SOAP to create a new class of services known as Web Services.

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    Developers, who were looking for a simpler, yet still powerful to build

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    services, eventually, embraced RESTful Services or APIs.

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    Instead of introducing new or proprietary technology,

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    REST APIs leverage the native capabilities of HTTP.

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    In this course, you'll learn how to use Microsoft's ASP.NET Web API framework to

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    build a rest API.

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    As you learn about web API, you'll be creating a service for

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    Fitness Frog Web Client.

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    A single page application, or spa, built using Angular.

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    To get the most out of this course, you should understand the basics of REST APIs

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    and be familiar with C#, ASP.NET, MVC, Entity Framework, and Visual Studio.

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    If you're unfamiliar with any of these, or maybe you need a refresher, see

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    the teacher's notes for links to resources that can help bring you up to speed.

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    I would also encourage you to follow along with each video as we design,

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    build, and test the Fitness Frog API.

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    By actively participating in a learning process,

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    you'll increased your retention of the material covered in this course.

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    In the next video, let's start with a quick review of what makes an API RESTful.

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    See you then.

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