Ambiguous Web Service References

[=?Utf-8?B?Q3JhaWc=?=]

Background:
I am building a Windows enterprise application that has separate assemblies
for UI, business logic/rules, and data access (i.e. typical N-tier
architecture). Many of the assemblies reference a "name and address web
service," which gives me validation lists for name honorifics (e.g. Dr, Mr,
Miss, Mrs), name suffixes (e.g. Sr, Jr, III), and City/State/ZIP combos. The
same name and address web service also can save and retrieve addresses.
Obviously, it's a pretty generic little web service that gets used in
multiple places in the app (return addresses for mailings; contact info for
A/R accounts; and more). Multiple assemblies have need to use the web service.

The Problem:
If each assembly has a reference to the same web service and names the proxy
the same thing (i.e. NameAndAddressW ebService), then I start getting
ambiguous reference errors popping up everywhere. If I name all the web
references differently, then I'm okay. But I have to be careful that all my
references truly have different names, even those "built into" other
assemblies developed by other programmers. Some options:
1) Why can't web references be marked "Friend" so their visibility is
restricted to the assembly that they're declared in? The VS2005-generated
code always generates "Public" proxy objects. (I can go into the Reference.vb
and change everything from Public to Friend, but that seems like a really
dangerous thing to do; "Update Web Reference" wipes out all these manual
override changes.)
2) I can create a wrapper assembly that essentially just has the web
reference proxy objects in it (i.e. NameAndAddressW SProxy.dll). I can then
reference this assembly from all my other assemblies and everything works.
But wrapping a web service seems hokey.
3) I could scrap the whole name and address web service and just turn it
into a standard Windows assembly (Windows Class Library). At this point, I'm
just not seeing the advantage of having this functionality in a web service
(heresy, I know!).

I've been looking for some best practices, or at least "here's-what-we-did",
articles, but I haven't found anything yet. Recommendations ?

[Spam Catcher]

Re: Ambiguous Web Service References

=?Utf-8?B?Q3JhaWc=?= <Craig@discussi ons.microsoft.c omwrote in
news:059F8B3A-C013-46C5-A334-218D4702A4BB@mi crosoft.com:

The Problem:
If each assembly has a reference to the same web service and names the
proxy the same thing (i.e. NameAndAddressW ebService), then I start
getting ambiguous reference errors popping up everywhere.

Use the fully qualified name:

i.e.: Namespace.Class .Object


If I name

all the web references differently, then I'm okay. But I have to be
careful that all my references truly have different names, even those
"built into" other assemblies developed by other programmers. Some
options: 1) Why can't web references be marked "Friend" so their
visibility is restricted to the assembly that they're declared in? The
VS2005-generated code always generates "Public" proxy objects. (I can
go into the Reference.vb and change everything from Public to Friend,
but that seems like a really dangerous thing to do; "Update Web
Reference" wipes out all these manual override changes.)
2) I can create a wrapper assembly that essentially just has the web
reference proxy objects in it (i.e. NameAndAddressW SProxy.dll). I can
then reference this assembly from all my other assemblies and
everything works. But wrapping a web service seems hokey.
3) I could scrap the whole name and address web service and just turn
it into a standard Windows assembly (Windows Class Library). At this
point, I'm just not seeing the advantage of having this functionality
in a web service (heresy, I know!).
>
I've been looking for some best practices, or at least
"here's-what-we-did", articles, but I haven't found anything yet.
Recommendations ?
>
>

[=?Utf-8?B?Q3JhaWc=?=]

Re: Ambiguous Web Service References

Spam Catcher -

My multiple UI assemblies all have the same namespace:
<root_namespace >.Action.Clerk. UserInterface

My business logic/rules assemblies all have the same namespace:
<root_namespace >.Action.Clerk. BusinessObjects

And my data access assemblies all have the same namespace:
<root_namespace >.Action.Clerk. DataObjects

So using the fully qualified name still doesn't resolve the ambiguities.
Again, I go back to the fact that web references can't be isolated to the
assembly that they're declared in; the proxy objects are in fact declared as
Public, which exposes them throughout any solution that the assemblies are
used in. This seems like a pretty big shortcoming to me.

"Spam Catcher" wrote:
Use the fully qualified name: i.e.: Namespace.Class .Object

[Spam Catcher]

Re: Ambiguous Web Service References

=?Utf-8?B?Q3JhaWc=?= <Craig@discussi ons.microsoft.c omwrote in
news:6244CB9F-AFC2-4159-BD78-C23D23A1EF4F@mi crosoft.com:

Spam Catcher -
>
My multiple UI assemblies all have the same namespace:
<root_namespace >.Action.Clerk. UserInterface

You shouldn't be naming your assemblies with all the same name.

Is there a reason why they're all the same?