using System;
using System.ServiceModel;

namespace IndiHello
{
      [ServiceContract]
      public class Hello
      {
            [OperationContract]
            public string SayHello(string name)
            {
                  return "Hello " + name;
            }
      }

      class Program
      {
            static void Main(string[] args)
            {
                  ServiceHost<Hello> host = new ServiceHost<Hello>(new Uri("http://localhost/hello"));
                  host.AddEndpoint(typeof(Hello), new BasicProfileHttpBinding(), "ep");
                  host.Open();
                  Console.WriteLine("Press ENTER to quit");
                  Console.ReadLine();
                  host.Close();
            }
      }
}

I am told that I can talk, so I do   Here’s a simple Indigo server. If you looked at the PDC 2003 Indigo bits, you will notice that the programming model changed quite a bit. I think that in fact, every single element of the programming model changed since then. And all for the better. The programming model is so intuitive by now that I am (almost) tempted to say “Alright, understood, next technology, please”.

So up there you have a class with an implicit service contract. An explicit service contract would be a standalone interface (that’s the proper way to do it, but I wanted to keep the first sample simple) with a [ServiceContract] attribute. Here, [ServiceContract] sits right on the class. Note that the class doesn’t derive from any special base class. Each method that you want to expose as an endpoint operation is labeled with [OperationContract]. These and a set of other attributes (along with a bunch of options you could set, but which I am not doing for the moment) control how the class contract is exposed to the outside world via Indigo.

In the Main method, you have a ServiceHost, which hosts the service (the class is parameterized with the implementation type) and which is initialized with the base-adress at which the service shall be hosted. The base address here is “http://localhost/hello” and with that maps into the namespace of http.sys at port 80. The endpoint can exist alongside any IIS-hosted websites, even though this particular app is hosted in its own little console-based app.

Into this host, I map the service contract with a BasicProfileHttpBinding() to the endpoint address “ep”, which means that messages to that particular service that flow through HTTP using the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 shall be directed to the “http://localhost/hello/ep” endpoint. Once I have a binding in place (that could also be done in config), I Open() the service and the service listens. Once I am done listening, I Close() the service.

Isn’t too hard.