Other technologies that can perform DTO request response like WCF - json

Question

I have a WCF service that allows me make a request using an DTO and replies with a DTO for a WPF application. For example I pass a filter object for products which has a few properties for things I want to filter on and a couple of extras for paging, (the server will take care processing the filter object and getting the data) an example is like this.
public async Task<ObservableCollection<ProductListItem>> GetProductList(ProductFilter filter, int startIndex, int pageSize, string sortBy)
I am wondering if there exists any other technologies beside WCF that allow such an operation, From my preliminary research which may be quite off is that WebAPI uses the GET, POST, PUT verbs and routing rules which is quite different.
ServiceStack looks like it might be able to do this I can see on slide 37 at https://servicestack.net/features
it says.
List<Product> productOver2Bucks = client.Get(new FindProducts{PriceGreaterThan = 2})
Which seems pretty close but might still require Rest verbs as it uses a Get().
I don't know it it is FUD or not but I have been reading that soap over WCF is believed by some to be a legacy technology and JSON is the way of the future. So is there a replacement technology that will work with a method signature to the one I have above? That i could call from platforms such as Windows universal applications.

Answer 1

In ServiceStack if you design your Service with the Any method name, e.g
public object Any(Request request)
{
return new Response { ... };
}
This will allow calling this Service from Any HTTP Verb on any Format or endpoint (e.g. JSON, XML, MsgPack, Protocol Buffers, SOAP, Message Queue's, etc).
Also you don't need to define any [Route] for your Request DTO's since it will automatically fallback into using the pre-defined Routes when none are available.
public class Request : IReturn<Response> { ... }
public class Response { }
So with the above Service you can use ServiceStack .NET ServiceClients to call the API's using any verb, e.g:
var client = new JsonServiceClient(baseUrl);
Response response = client.Get(new Request { ... });
Response response = client.Post(new Request { ... });
When preferred you can also use the async API's, e.g:
var response = await client.GetAsync(new Request { ... });
var response = await client.PostAsync(new Request { ... });
Which if you don't care for using verbs you can use the generic Send API, e.g:
Response response = client.Send(new Request { ... });
Which just uses POST underneath, although it's highly recommended to use Get for "read only" queries as it will allow the Services HTTP responses to be cached by any intermediate HTTP Middleware or proxies.
Add ServiceStack Reference
Also if you're coming from WCF you'll also enjoy ServiceStack's, Add ServiceStack Reference which provides a number of advantages over WCF's Add Service Reference feature but still provides the same utility in being able to generate a typed API from a remote url for:
C# Add Reference
F# Add Reference
VB.NET Add Reference
TypeScript Add Reference
With more languages to follow.
Advantages over SOAP
Whilst ServiceStack still enables WSDL's, XSD's for your Services so they can be called from SOAP 1.1/1.2 endpoints for legacy compatible reasons - there are a number of reasons why using clean HTTP and JSON/XML API's are preferred.