How to build a messaging system in .NET?

Question

I'd like to write a program where you can have 2 clients that talk to each other in realtime. I've been looking into WCF services and Duplex messaging, data contracts etc but now I'm confused.

Basically I see it as:

[Client] --- msg --> [Server] --- msg --> [Client] and vica versa.

The server will just act as the messenger.

Could you please point me in the right direction? I'd like to use WPF for the client apps.

Answer 1

Check out the WCF peer-to-peer programming paradigm. It will be extended in WCF 4 (with .NET 4 - due out April 12, 2010) by allowing dynamic discovery (and article here) of other clients on your network.

Answer 2

This should help get you going: WCF / WPF Chat Application