Customer Reviews

Pro WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 3.5 (Expert's Voice in .NET)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I make my living as a consultant software architect/programmer and usually self-educate on newer technologies through books like this one. I've often found Apress titles to be of great value and this one does not disappoint. In Pro WF, the author takes a logical textbook approach (introducing what you should expect to learn, teaching the material, reviewing what you should have learned) as he guides you from a broad foundational understanding of the workflow framework and components through advanced topics such as persistence, serialization, web services and wcf integration. What makes this book stand out is that the author does a great job of inserting practical tips that highlight nuances of the framework that someone without prior experience would not intrinsically know.
I'm very pleased with this reference. I think you would be too.

This book is the book to have if you are going to get into Windows Workflow Foundation. There are no other books on WF out on the market that compare to the broad view and depth of this book.

I own the first version of the book and was reluctant to buy this version because there was not too much changing in .NET 3.5. I am glad I did. I like having the most current information on a technology I am working on at my finger tips. And not in electronic format. I have no idea how people can code all day and then read eBooks all night. Plus my other copy was pretty scribbled up with notes.

This version contain two new chapters. One titled Advanced Custom Activities, and the other titled Workflow Service and WCF Integration. Both new chapters contain a lot of valuable in-depth information.

The code samples are very well organized and add a lot of value to this book. However, as the author points out in the beginning of the book, he wrote it to be readable on the beach. Meaning the code is in the book, and you don't have to have it open on a computer to read the book.

The examples are simple yet he uses them to take you down into the weeds.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to get into WF. It is a great read!!!!

This book provides comprehensive tutorials on how to develop Windows Workflow Foundation applications. I debated whether to deduct one star from my rating because I felt that the example scenarios provided by the author were mostly simplistic and sometimes boring, but decided not to, because the examples do get the explanation across.

I'm somewhat bewildered as to why such an important technology (WF) has produced an astounding dearth of good books on the subject. Thankfully, we have Mr. Bukovics' offering which would be a stand-out even if the book marketplace was full of options.

With this newer version of his book (yes, I did purchase the 3.0 version), we get very important information on (1) the two new additions to WF offered in 3.5 (2) WCF-WF integration and (3) advanced topics on Services. These topics smooth out the rough edges of WF 3.0. Comprehensive discussions of these topics, and others, are not readily available from any other source.

Therefore, this newer version of the book is a must-have; even for those, like myself, who purchased his first version.

Last Friday, I passed the WF-examination with 900 points!

I'm glad that I bought this book. WF is a huge framework
and this book does a good job in explaining every aspect of WF.
This book offers lots of examples which are documented very well.
At times, it is difficult not to get lost in the details.

Following chapters of "Pro WF" were especially helpful:

9: State Machine
11: Workflow Rules
14: Dynamic Workflow Updates
15: Workflow Tracking
19 Hosting the designer

I used this book to look up the parts of WF which
were poorly documented by its creator.

This book is great for all developers wanting to use Microsoft's Workflow. It gives a very easy introduction for all users and then procedes to Full Source examples of basic and advanced techniques! Just What I was looking for!!!!!

I recently developed a c# sharepoint workflow, for work, and I did find myself using this book on a number of times to gain a better understanding of what I needed to do.

Specifically, when I was encountering issues with using the replicator activity to create and manage tasks dynamically, this book helped me to understand the underlying mechanisms, involving the ActivityExecutionContext, sufficiently well to get it working.

Also, I found myself referring to the book's explanation of the different workflow activities, as it described them fairly well.

Although it has no sharepoint workflow specific information that I am aware of, it has definitely aided my sharepoint worklow development efforts.

The author seems to understand Windows workflow and is able to convey that understanding in a helpful manner.

This book was absolutely fantastic! It was incredibly well written and ALL of the examples worked, without a hitch. As difficult as it is to keep current these days, Bruce has a writing style that is extremely forgiving to the reader who is constantly juggling a few different tech books at once; he is constantly reminding you about things that you have read in chapters that you may have not touched in weeks or even months. I personally like this approach, as it allows me to pick up the book and get back into it as if I'd never put it down.

In addition to his writing style, I'm very thankful of the WorkflowInstanceManager that he created and referenced throughout the book. Even though I feel that it needs more threading support, I have found the manager to be easy to use and easily extendable.

Perhaps the most valuable portion of the book was the workflow designer host that Bruce created in the final chapter. On initial skim, I never really understood how serialized workflows and a workflow designer host could benefit me. But after getting his long (but worth it) code sample up and running, it opened my eyes to many application design possibilities within my organization. The customizable designer is an invaluable tool and has saved me countless hours of R & D time.

Thanks Bruce!

I found this book to be an excellent introduction into Windows Workflow. I am very impressed with the author's detailed instruction yet easy to follow style. All the concepts are backed up with relevant examples. Very well prepared and executed piece of work. I have several other topics I would like this author to explore.

Absolutely the best book on WWF out today. So much more content than the others that there's absolutely no reason to consider a different workflow book. Workflowservicehost? Writing your own persistence or tracking services? Rehosting the designer? All here.