Foundations of WF

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Foundations of WF

With the release of Microsoft Vista, a whole new set ofpowerful technologies are available to the .NET programmer. One of these technologiesis Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF, or WF for short). WF was designed to makethe construction, execution, and maintenance of application and businessprocess workflows easier and more standardized across systems andorganizations. Using a Visio-style workflow palette combined with VB or C#code, .NET developers can leverage WF to create complex workflows in a fractionof the time it would take to codify without the assistance of the WF framework.Additionally, WF supplies developers with the added benefit of built-intransaction management and error trapping logic that would consume an inordinateamount of the busy programmer s time.

One of the first books out that is exclusively devoted tothe subject is by author Brian Myers, a Microsoft Certified Developer. Writtenfor experienced .NET developers, Foundationsof WF: An Introduction to Windows Workflow Foundationintroduces the WF components accompanied by VB and C# code examples (althoughVB is the language of priority in the book).

Foundations of WFbegins with an introduction to the types of workflows defined by Microsoft,these being Sequential and State Machine, and installing the Visual Studio 2005Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation. Note that while these extensionswork with .NET 2.0, they only execute on Windows Vista, thereby making that OSan essential requirement. Thus, WF applications must be developed using VS 2005on Vista exclusively. Chapter 2 is a tutorial oncreating the two types of Console-based workflow applications, as well as astub for a database-driven order processing system that is more comprehensivelyfleshed out throughout the ensuing seven chapters. The book culminates inChapter 10 with the construction of an employee performance review applicationthat demonstrates all the programming logic and nuances that WF offers. Thelast chapter in the book quickly reviews the WWF integration with MicrosoftOffice 2007, requiring SharePoint 2007 as the middleman glue to coordinateactivities between the participating Office applications (creating anddeploying an InfoPath form to a SharePoint server is the primary example givenin the chapter). Overall, the book does a good job of introducing WF with a fewbaseline examples, but, frankly, does little more that. It also fails topassionately excite the reader with whythis technology is so cool in the first place.

Foundations of WFis a precursor to Apress follow up title, ProWF:Windows Workflow in .NET 3.0. As such, Foundationsis an expensive introduction to the subject. While the book does accomplish itsobjective of orienting the reader with WF s moving parts, it s as if it waswritten with the intent to be included in a larger book on the subject. Nowthat Vista has been released to the public, there s nodoubt that the programming book floodgates on the OS and its various newfeatures will eventually overwhelm the avid technologist. Forward thinkers canget a head start on WF, but will pay the early adopter price for the privilege.

Mike Riley

Rating:

Title: Foundations of WF: An Introduction toWindows Workflow Foundation

Author: BrianR. Myers

Publisher:Apress

ISBN:1-59059-718-4

Web Site: http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=10172

Price: US$34.99

Page Count: 240