I was searching Google the other day for an issue I was having with a web service, and I encountered this little gem of an article.

1. Using .NET Specific Types

The fundamental concept behind Web Services is the creation of application logic that is accessible anytime, anywhere, by any other application regardless of technology. Sadly, this also means non .NET applications. The most important aspect of actually achieving interoperability with web services is not contained in code, or at least not directly. For a web service to be interoperable with any technology the data contract it defines must be based on types that are defined by XML Schema, not the .NET Framework. So then, if you use .NET specific types as parameters or return values for a web service, the XML it produces may not be interoperable with Java or some other technology.

It’s very tempting to just use .NET types, but we do need to consider who the consumer of the data is. Most web services are not meant strictly for internal use – you don’t know what platform your client will be using, nor should you need to know. Web services are all about XML and INTEROPERABILITY. If you need to care who your consumer is, you’re doing it wrong.

Check out the rest here.

Top 5 Web Service Mistakes