SharePoint 2010 Development with Silverlight

9. Accessing SharePoint Data with WCF Data Services

IN THE LAST CHAPTER you learned about SharePoint’s Client Object Model. This chapter introduces another option for accessing SharePoint list data in Silverlight. WCF Data Services, also known as ADO.NET Data Services, provides easy access to SharePoint list data using REST and the Open Data Protocol.

A major advantage of using WCF Data Services rather than the Client Object Model or Web Services interfaces to SharePoint is that Visual Studio can generate client-side proxy classes that provide strongly-typed access to list data. This can reduce coding errors and makes list fields available in Visual Studio IntelliSense. For example, where in the Client Object Model you might retrieve an IEnumerable<ListItem> ...