Teach yourself the essentials of Windows Communication Foundation—one step at a time. With this practical tutorial, you get hands-on guidance for creating the Web services you need to implement robust business applications for Windows.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 12 Ratings

Not good for Vista and VS 2008 users - 2008-02-08
Reviewer Rating:
This book is both good and bad. The good is that the author is skilled at explaining complex material in simple straightforward manner and this is a rare skill for computer book authors. Also, the labs are more interesting than the standard "hello world" type of labs. However, like most of the WCF books out now, it is written for Visual Studio 2005 and for XP and not for Vista and Visual Studio 2008. The lab solutions don't even work. The worst is that the author and the publisher have no VS 2008 lab downloads or update notes. Some of the other authors have went to the trouble of doing that.

Don't buy this book - 2008-07-05
Reviewer Rating:
I am trying to follow the exact steps in the book in Visual Studio 2005 on Windows XP in mid-2008. The book was apparently written before VS 2005 was released. Many details no longer apply. You can't follow the steps, starting from the very first example. The Enterprise Library Configuration described on p. 8 has a screenshot that is not what the Enterprise Library 3.1 Configuration Tool looks like. On the next page, Visual Studio 2005 SP1 with .Net 3.0 does not have a template for a WCF Service Library, and there's no explanation for how to add it. It's just very discouraging to try to back into outdated instructions. Find something that applies to the current Visual Studio development environment if you really want "step by step" guidance.

Straight Forward and Easy to Follow - 2008-05-31
Reviewer Rating:
I purchased this book to get a good base in WCF and that's exactly what this book gives you. It's straight to the point and the examples were easy to follow. You may require something further for more advanced concepts.

Called "Step by step" for a reason - 2009-05-24
Reviewer Rating:
This book delivers just what it promises, a learn-by-doing, practical, hands-on approach to WCF. Uncompromisingly so, in fact.

A typical section consists of two or three paragraphs of introduction and theory, followed by five pages of step-by-step instructions for creating an example. The instructions are very detailed, on the level of "In the Enterprise Configuration console, in the File menu, click New Application" or "Press Enter to close the ProductsClient console". Sometimes more theory and explanations are strewn between the steps.

I found this to be a messy and occationally tedious way of presenting information.

You have to read through every button press of every guide, no matter how uninteresting the topic is, in case a precious bit of "why" or "when" has been placed there instead of in the theory section. Some elements, like the definition o a behaviour, seems to be missing entirely and is meant to be inferred from what happens when you change it.

Even for the interesting parts, the level of detail can make it tedious to follow. Fortunately, the resulting configuration XML is often listed after a handful of detailed button pushing steps. I often found the XML to be easier to follow (XML for "Set the security mode to Message and the algorithmSuite to Basic128" was easier to understand and perform than 11 steps in which "Expand the ProductsServiceHost project in Solution Explorer, right-click the App.config file and then click Edit WCF Configuration" was one of the shortest).

The information, however unstructured at times, is fairly complete and correct (as far as I can tell). Some books pretend to explain "SetFooSnafucationLevel" by saying "Sets the Foo Snafucation Level" (a blatant cop out), but this book does nothing of the sort. The author clearly knows what he's doing.

The book definitely has its market, but unless you're the pathologically practical type who likes very, very details instructions, you might not be it. The information is still there though, if you're willing to hunt for it.

All you need to start with WCF - 2008-08-06
Reviewer Rating:
This book starts with an excellent intro to WCF in the first 10 chapters and in the last 6 chapters goes deeper into the framework. I liked the smooth gradual increase in complexity and the completeness of the content coverage.

As I used VS2008 on Vista with Enterprise Library 4.0 the primers do not always work as described. I can see how a novice in .NET and ASP.NET might get really frustrated with the inconsistencies (primarily around UAC and the Enterprise Library), but for more experienced developers it would not be hard to figure things out after some googling, and learn quite a bit in the process. It'll be nice though if the author makes some clarifications and updates, and posts them to amazon or to MS Press.

This book is all about learning by doing. There is no fluff and useless rants. Highly recommended.