This easy-to-use introduction to Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is ideal for developers who want to learn to build services on a company network or as part of an enterprise system. Built into Windows Vista and Longhorn, and available for Windows XP and Windows 2003, WCF provides a platform for service-oriented architecture (SOA) that enables secure and reliable communication among systems within an organization or across the Internet. With WCF, software developers can focus on their business applications and not the plumbing required to connect them. Furthermore, with WCF developers can learn a single programming API to achieve results previously provided by ASMX, Enterprise Services and .NET Remoting. Learning WCF removes the complexity of using this platform by providing detailed answers, explanations and code samples for the most common questions asked by software developers. Windows Communication Foundation (or WCF, formerly code name "Indigo") provides a set of programming APIs that make it easy to build and consume secure, reliable, and transacted services. This platform removes the need for developers to learn different technologies such as ASMX, Enterprise Services and .NET Remoting, to distribute system functionality on a corporate network or over the Internet. The first truly service-oriented platform, WCF provides innovations that decouple service design and development from deployment and distribution - creating a more flexible and agile environment. WCF also encapsulates all of the latest web service standards for addressing, security, reliability and more.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
To old to be of any use:
If you're running VS 2005 with .Net Framework 3.0, this might be a good learning tool. However, the word 'learning' may be a stretch in this case. I would expect additional content related to issues faced while trying the examples. There are none. If you can't get things to work while walking through the examples, you're on your own. In some cases, this might not be such a bad thing, but this book uses the first example and builds on it with every other example, continually adding more development work. For... more info
Minor flaw hinders what could have been a great book.:
Pro - Easy to understand and having a hands-on approach is good. Nice slow pace for beginners. Con - (i) I agree with the previous reader here that the organization of the book could be better. I also don't like to type in anything without knowing the reason why I type it. (ii) The organization of the source code is confusing. For example, the CompletedLabs in Chapter 1, there is a HelloIndigo_Part1 folder, a HelloIndigo_Part2 folder and a HelloIndigo_Part3 folder - I honestly could not tell which... more info
My first and last book by this publisher:
I was looking for a good book on WCF and saw that this book received great reviews. I started out with their other book "Programming WCF Services" and thought maybe this one would be better to start out with. I am now returning both of them and will try either the Pro WCF: Practical Microsoft SOA Implementation (Pro) book by APRESS or the Professional WCF Programming: .NET Development with the Windows Communication Foundation (Programmer to Programmer) book. I personally don't like the way this book is... more info
Going straight to the WCF technical matter.:
I had to cross through several WCF books before finding the right one for me. This book has very easy learning approach - going straight to the technical WCF matter. In a good intro chapter, explaining everything about creating and configuring WCF servers and clients the book defines serialization, hosting, bindings, behaviors and other specific WCF basis. All these meanings are discussed deeper in consecutive chapters.
