6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Nice Introduction, April 9, 2010
This review is from: Beginning WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 4.0 (Expert's Voice in .NET) (Paperback)
I know I said I would not consider using Windows Workflow until 2011 (google for "Good-bye Windows Workflow Foundation see you in 2011") but I at least wanted to check out the changes. This book is the ideal book for that. It goes into enough detail to give a very thorough understanding of what is going on with Windows Workflow 4.0.
The book is very well written and organized. It covers designer-based and code-based workflows, implementing SQL persistence, creating workflow extensions and custom activities, communicating with applications, long-running workflows, and workflows using WCF services.
The downloadable code is well organized and very usable.
All in all, this is a good book for getting into the guts of WF 4.0. It is a nice introduction.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A VERY basic introduction, April 29, 2010
This review is from: Beginning WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 4.0 (Expert's Voice in .NET) (Paperback)
This book has the advantage of being one of the first available for WF 4, but it is VERY basic. If you only plan to use WF by composing the built-in activities in the designer, then this might be fine for you. If what you want to do is create your own coded activities for you or others to use, then this book does not really provide much information.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great introduction, but could be better, June 17, 2010
This review is from: Beginning WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 4.0 (Expert's Voice in .NET) (Paperback)
I've been a .NET developer for quite a while - starting with version 1.1. I've kept up to date on almost all the developing technologies, language features and toolset that have emerged and evolved within the framework in that time. I feel like I've had a good grasp on most everything. Except Windows Workflow Foundation, or WF for short. I tried learning it in .NET 3.0/3.5, but never had my "a-ha!" moment. Most books and blog posts were "hello world" oriented, and never dove in to how to use WF in the real world - what does WF look like in a real application? If the books and posts weren't on the "hello world" level, they were too in-depth and difficult to follow. In short, it was tough to learn WF.
This is where I was when I picked up a copy of "Beginning WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 4.0" by Mark Collins. Beginning WF is the first book on WF that helped me really get it. It was a nice, gentle introduction to the fundamentals of WF. Perhaps part of the breakthrough I experienced while reading this book is due to the latest version of WF - WF 4 is a complete overhaul from previous versions - but I think more of it was the way Mark approached the subject. Mark assumes no previous experience with WF. As far as fundamentals go, he starts from scratch and explains the basics, while stepping the reader through some easy to follow examples (the finished products are available for download in case you get lost). I finished the first half of the book very confident in my ability to fire up Visual Studio 2010 and build a simple workflow.
However, I felt when he moved on to the more advanced topics, he stopped explaining them as well. Chapters on advanced fundamentals started immediately with the example. Learning by doing is a valid approach, and may work well for you, but I personally like a little more background information on the topic I'm working with. The chapter on SQL persistence is one that comes to mind. In this chapter we jump directly in to building the UI for the example that will demo SQL persistence, without a word on what SQL persistence is, what we use it for, and why we should care about how/when to work it in to a given application. Some of these answers come out in the example, but they aren't highlighted well - if you tend to skim tech books for the `meat' of the content, you'll have a hard time getting what you want from this book.
While the shallow treatment of advanced topics wasn't too compatible with my tech book reading style, I will say that he touched on a ton of topics. It's very unlikely that you'll be utilizing any part of WF in your first WF project that isn't covered in this book. It makes a really good attempt to bridge the gap from hello world to real world, including as an appendix a complete real-world application, showing what WF would look like in a real business process.
Beginning WF is the book that finally got me started with WF. So if you're looking just to get started, this is an excellent resource. This is almost a perfect WF book, and I would have given it 5 stars had the topics later in the book been discussed in theory (what is it, when do you use it, why should you care) before jumping directly in to how to use it. Still a solid title on my shelf, one which I'll lend out to people looking to create their first workflow.
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