This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is Microsoft’s dynamic technology for allowing autonomous software to communicate. Superseding earlier technologies such as COM/DCOM, .NET Remoting, ASP.NET Web Services, and the Web Services Enhancements for .NET, WCF provides a single solution that is designed to always be the best way to exchange data among software entities. It also provides the infrastructure for developing the next generation of Web Services, with support for the WS-* family of specifications, and a new serialization system for enhanced performance. In the 3.5 release, WCF has been expanded to include support for REST, JSON, and Syndication (RSS and Atom) services, further broadening the possibilities for what can be done. For information technology professionals, WCF supplies an impressive array of administration tools that enterprises and software vendors can use to reduce the cost of ownership of their solutions without writing a single line of code. Most important, WCF delivers on the promise of model-driven software development with the new software factory approach, by which one can iteratively design solutions in a modeling language and generate

executables from lower-level class libraries.

Windows Communication Foundation 3.5 Unleashed is designed to be the essential resource for software developers and architects working with WCF. The book guides readers through a conceptual understanding of all the facilities of WCF and provides step-by-step guides to applying the technology to practical problems.

As evangelists at Microsoft for WCF, WF, and CardSpace, Craig McMurtry, Marc Mercuri, Nigel Watling, and Matt Winkler are uniquely positioned to write this book. They had access to the development team and to the product as it was being built. Their work with enterprises and outside software vendors has given them unique insight into how others see the software, how they want to apply it, and the challenges they face in doing so.

--Gives you nearly 100 best practices for programming with WCF

--Provides detailed coverage of how to version services that you will not find anywhere else

--Delves into using WCF together with Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and Windows CardSpace

--Provides detailed coverage of the new high-performance data contract serializer for .NET

--Walks you through creating secure, reliable, transacted messaging, and how to understand the available options

--Introduces you to federated, claims-based security and shows you how to incorporate SAML and WS-Trust security token services into your architecture

--Provides step-by-step instructions for how to customize every aspect of WCF

--Shows you how to add behaviors, communication channels, message encoders, and transports

--Presents options for implementing publish/subscribe solutions

--Gives clear guidance on peer-to-peer communications with WCF

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 6 Ratings

Worst Book Purchase of 2008 - 2008-11-13
Reviewer Rating:
This book reminds me of one of the old WROX books written by 23 different authors who were not told what the title was, and were not allowed to take their ADHD medicine while writing the book.

Every chapter is some sort of between content. What I mean by that is they skipped the background, skipped setting up the context, picked one piece of part of a solution, presented it, skipped the explanation, skipped the summary, and moved on to a completely different topic in the next section. They give you the content between all the important stuff.

So it is not readable from cover to cover.

I am currently putting together an application using WCF and WF Services. I have run into approximately 7 or 8 things I needed to look up. This book provide no guidance on any of them.

So it does not make a good reference.

The code still does not exist, so I cannot comment on its usability.

My recommendation is to definitely look elsewhere when looking for a WCF 3.5 book.

very upset customer - 2008-11-05
Reviewer Rating:
I agree 100% with a previous customer review, a) no code to download in spite of what is said b) use's safari as a .PDF substitute, which totally stinks.

on the back cover it says, "free online Edition with the purchase of this book", this means that only if you are online can the book be accessed, totally useless. You receive 1 token to be able to get 1 chapter in pdf format, well theres 21 chapters. so unless you get the unlimited package, you cannot bring the book to your pc to view.

i'm just not impressed with what I read so-far and I really dislike the no code to download problem.

Not Completely Awful - 2009-04-01
Reviewer Rating:
This wasn't a horrible book. It had some interesting background and contextual information. The general high level explanations were interesting, but I felt that most of the coding examples were too complicated for someone trying to comprehend a new technology, when anything more than 'hello world' is a challenge. I think this would be a good book to come back to once one is familiar with the technology. I did like very much the way it covered both WF and WCF, and integration in the same material (because thats what I am trying to do).

That being said, I am very unhappy about one example in the book that simply does not work. And...after downloading the source code from the link provided by the author, this example is not present!! Why? On page 236 there is a code listing. There is a single call to SetContext(context) that does not work. It raises an exception saying that the persistence service should be installed. After installing persistence, it complains that the instance of the workflow cannot be found. If anyone knows what up with this I would be very grateful.

Disappointed - 2009-05-23
Reviewer Rating:
The reviewer who said "none of the code examples work in a step-by-step manor" pretty much nailed it. To be specific, I was able to follow along until the durable service example in chapter 3. It seems to be slapped together. The code example on page 117 needs [Serializable] and [DurableService] attributes at the top. You also need add references and some using statements. In the second to last paragraph on 117 it refers to the DataContract attribute when it means the Serializable attribute. The scripts you run to set up the database (page 119) install in the "master" database, not in "wfDurableServices" as the Initial Catalog setting on page 118 shows. (Oh, be sure to run the script to set up the schema **first**.) Also, the bindingConfiguration setting on that page causes errors (it runs okay without it).

The bottom of page 119 shows a code example with Main() that starts the service host. That's fine, but there's another Main() on page 120-121 where it's also needed.

So, I got it to run, but it took a lot of trial and error and consulting VS2008 documentation. It's clear that no one tested this partiular example.

Better look elsewhere... - 2009-03-24
Reviewer Rating:
As previously mentioned, this book is hardly worth the effort. None of the code examples work in a step-by-step manor and you will spend more time attempting to piece together the mistakes than actually learning anything.

It's amazing the authors/editors didn't take the 2 hours it would take to go through and test out their samples to see that nothing works out of the box.

As previously mentioned, the websites listed as download and errata sources do not exist, provide no help, or offer errata that isn't any different than the incorrect text the book already contains.

It's a shame since the book is fairly easy to read and has a straightforward approach. However it is entirely unusable as a form of reference or learning.

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