Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation: Hands-on! : Beta Edition

By Nigel Watling, Marc Mercuri, Craig McMurtry

Provides information on using Indigo, a new technology that allows software to communicate. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0672328771
• ISBN13: 9780672328770
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Sams
• Length: 539 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

a work still in progress, but quite intriguing

WCF is a very promising new technology being put out by Microsoft. You should take note that it is still actively a work in progress. Made clear both by the text in the book and by postings from other reviewers and the authors. There is indeed a potential drawback, inasmuch as specific coding details may get obsoleted by an eventual stable production release. But before you are tempted to turn away, keep in mind that the very title cover of the book says "Beta Edition". The advantage is an early, informal look at WCF. There are several intriguing parts of WCF. One that caught my attention is claims-based authorisation. It generalises the well established idea of an Access Control List. All previous implementations of ACLs were specific to given platforms. There was no concept that you would need to have some kind of ACL across multiple platforms. Whereas Microsoft has used the Security Assertion Markup Language to implement claims in a textual XML format that can be conveyed between platforms. Potentially, it means that claims can be instantiated under unix or linux, for example, and be fully compatible with those under a Microsoft operating system. It's also nice as another demonstration how XML really is the way to go for interplatform interoperability. Unlike the binary morass of CORBA. The book is replete with C# code examples. Plus the Sams website has more code. You can quickly start tinkering.

Good Initial Perspective on WCF

Gives a good MSFT perspective on WCF and the HOWTO get up & running with WCF.

A very well written book

This a very well written step by step guide to WCF. Though the book does not reflect the changes in June CTP, it presents the concepts in a nice, easy to understand manner.

Learn WCF Hands-On!

"Windows Communication Foundation: Hands-on!" is a great book covering the framework and model of WCF. Each chapter starts with the basic concepts required to grasp the topic and then dives into a code example as a walkthrough. The topics are covered clearly and in depth. It completely changed my perception of what WCF really are. The book is well written with illustrative code examples and I recommend it to anyone wanting to learn WCF.

Best Book to learn WCF from scratch

I've work with 3 different books on WCF and this one is by far the best one. First of all, it's me most up-to-date in term of CTP. But it's best asset is that it simplify the complexity of the technology and give the reader a complete reference on the framework. I've been coding on WCF for about 4 weeks and it's still my main reference since everyting is in it. Save yourself the trouble and go with this one first!