title: asp.net web api controllers accept POCO or generic data
body: <p>I am new with ASP.NET Web API and have been researching this for some time now. Admittedly, I have decision paralysis. I want to make a REST-like API for a system with about 250 tables in the database. It's basically a 2 tier system with a UI and a data access layer, not using business objects or ORM.</p>
  
  <p>I cannot decide if my Web API Controllers should accept/return: </p>
  
  <p>a) IDictionary of name/value pairs, which I would package into sql parameters and pass to the data access layer and return a serialized ado.net data table</p>
  
  <p>b) strongly typed complex object (POCO objects). For example: Account class with all properties matching up with fields in the database.</p>
  
  <p>If I have to create POCO classes for every table in the system, there would be 250+ classes that essentially do nothing except package the data and pass it to our data access layer.</p>
  
  <p>Further, it seems as if I need to create an ApiController for basically every table in the database that I want to expose via the Web Api because you only have GET, POST, PUT, DELETE per route? Please help, banging head on desk. </p>