When a request comes in to your ASP.NET site, it's routed through a series of message handlers (in ASP.NET Web API) or modules (in ASP.NET MVC), each of which performs some operation on the request.

The services that comprise distributed applications must communicate with one another to exchange data or information. You need a common data format for these communications, which narrows the options ...

ASP.NET MVC is driven by the URLs your users provide to get to the Views they want to see. If those URLs don't include a controller or action method name, then you can provide the missing information ...