difference between WCF Services and Web Services and REST Service

Question

What is the difference between WCF Services and Web Services in .net
When should I use WCF and when to use Web Services.Is REST and WCF service the same? Thanks

Answer 1

WCF is multifaceted, so I'm going to speak of it with respect to its most common usage. The general difference between WCF and REST services is centered around the content. A REST call is usually more message/document/entity centered (With customer entities, find those starting with M; With order entities, get order 12 and is tied to the HTTP protocol. WCF tends to be more operation centered (Invoke find operation with params, Invoke get operation with parameters). WCF also isn't tied to HTTP.

FYI, there are extensions to create REST based services using WCF (WebInvoke, WebGet attributes).