Is it advisable to use the canonical form in a Silverlight application?

We are devel开发者_如何学运维oping a LOB application using Silverlight and several team members are advocating the use of the canonical design pattern instead of creating simple WCF services. As the lead, I’m trying to balance best practices with an incredibly tight time line.

Here are the reasons I do NOT think Canonical is a good approach for our project.

• We have no immediate (<5 years) requirement to expose any internal services to the enterprise.
• Time required for governance. (Developing adapters with data transformation logic, developing XSDs, and developing contracts [fault, data, and operation]).
• No need to expose a different data contracts than what exists in the data layer
• It doesn’t appear that we can easily use ‘self tracking entities’ with the Canonical approach.

Here are some reasons I’m considering using Canonical approach.

• We can use the XSD schemas for data type and length validation.
• We will be prepared to allow consumption of our services to the enterprise, whether it’s 5 years or 1 year.
• We can feel good that we’re implementing best practices. :)

So, is it advisable to follow the Canonical approach with a Silverlight application? It does not seem that the benefits Canonical provide out weigh the additional work. …or perhaps I’m wrong and it’s not additional work.

I think you should definitely go with WCF RIA services. It's extensible in every point possible, it's fast to develop, it's accessible as regular WCF services, it also has plenty different available end point types, and generally very mature. And implements best practices, and validation process is fully customizable. It really is a no brainer, if you have some additional questions about it shoot away, i'll gladly answer them:)