.NET/C# for web service test clients?
Lately I have been knee deep designing, coding, and now testing a web service infrastructure that acts as a mediator between systems. Basically, the server allows systems that comply to a certain companies standards communicate using such with a system that can't comply with those standards. Technically this boils down to message transformation and handling of things that appear in the SOAP header like WS-Security. However, that is whole different discussion.
Testing became a big issue to me on this project since I knew many people with varying skills needed to be involved in tests. One test in particular was required for a home grown file transfer web service. For large files , the web service requires "chunking" of data over the wire. So a large file of say 1MB might be sent in ten 100k chunks. This required programming a test client to break up a file and exercise the web service. I started using both Java and C# to create my clients. Much to my surprise I found that coding was faster using Visual Studio and C# to create the client. Not only did the user interface work go faster, but the C# code generated from the WSDL respected the facets on elements. More and more I encourage the use of facets in XSD's to try and sharply define data. Therefore, it is really useful to see a code generator that recognizes them and respects them.
I find it amusing that I embrace Microsoft technology as a path of least resistance to leverage standards.
