Pro WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 4 [Paperback]

Bruce Bukovics (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 29, 2010 | ISBN-10: 1430227214 | ISBN-13: 978-1430227212 | Edition: 1

Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is a revolutionary part of the .NET 4 Framework that allows you to orchestrate human and system interactions as a series of workflows that can be easily mapped, analyzed, adjusted, and implemented. As business problems become more complex, the need for workflow-based solutions has never been more evident. WF provides a simple and consistent way to model and implement complex problems. As a developer, you focus on developing the business logic for individual workflow tasks. The runtime handles the execution of those tasks after they have been composed into a workflow.

Pro WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 4 provides you with the skills you need to incorporate WF in your applications, using a lively tutorial style with each example illustrated in C#. This book gets you up to speed with WF 4 quickly and comprehensively. Learn about WF 4’s new designer, it’s updated programming paradigm, and the completely new set of activities that can enable and extend your workflows. This book also includes detailed coverage of how to customize your workflows and access them in a variety of ways and situations so you can maximize the advantages of this technology.

What you’ll learn

• WF 4 basics
• New activities and changes to existing activities in WF 4
• Customizing your workflows
• Accessing your workflows in a variety of ways in a variety of situations
• Using WF with Web Services and ASP.NET
• Integrating WCF and WF

Who this book is for

This book is for intermediate to advanced .NET developers who need to learn how to use the latest version of Windows Workflow Foundation (WF 4). This book is not a primer on .NET or the C# language. To get the most out of the examples presented in this book, it is necessary to have a good working knowledge of .NET 2.0 or higher. All of the examples are presented in C#.

Table of Contents

1. A Quick Tour of Windows Workflow Foundation
2. Foundation Overview
3. Activities
4. Workflow Hosting
5. Procedural Flow Control
6. Collection-Related Activities
7. Flowchart Modeling Style
8. Host Communication
9. Workflow Services
10. Workflow Services Advanced Topics
11. Workflow Persistence
12. Customizing Workflow Persistence
13. Transactions, Compensation, and Exception Handling
14. Workflow Tracking
15. Enhancing the Design Experience
16. Advanced Custom Activities
17. Hosting the Workflow Designer
18. WF 3.x Interop and Migration

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bruce Bukovics has been a working developer for over 25 years. During this time, he has designed and developed applications in such widely varying areas as banking, corporate finance, credit card processing, payroll processing, and retail automation. He has firsthand developer experience with C, C++, Delphi, VB, C#, and Java, and he rode the waves of technology as they drifted from mainframe to client/server to n-Tier, from COM to COM+, and from Web Services to .NET Remoting and beyond. He considers himself a pragmatic programmer. He doesn't stand on formality and doesn't do things just because they have always been done that way. He's willing to look at alternate or unorthodox solutions to a problem if that's what it takes. He is employed at Radiant Systems, Inc., in Alpharetta, Georgia, as a lead developer and architect in the centralized development group.

Product Details

• Paperback: 936 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (June 29, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430227214
• ISBN-13: 978-1430227212
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #126,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #92 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > C#

More About the Author

I have been a working developer for over 25 years. During this time, I have designed and developed applications in such widely varying areas as banking, corporate finance, credit card processing, payroll processing, and retail systems.

I have first-hand developer experience with a variety of languages including C, C++, Delphi, Java, VB, and C#. My design and development experience includes everything from mainframe and client/server to widely distributed n-tier and SOA applications. Most recently, I have been immersed in the .NET 3.0 technology stack, leveraging Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), and of course, Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) to help build a new generation of applications.

I consider myself a pragmatic programmer and test-driven development evangelist. I don't stand on formality and don't do things in a particular way just because they have always been done that way. I'm willing to look at alternate or unorthodox solutions to a problem if that's what it takes.

I am currently employed at Radiant Systems, Inc., in Alpharetta, Georgia, as a lead developer and architect in the central technology group.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Comprehensive, August 29, 2010

By 

James Alexander (Novi, MI United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pro WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 4 (Paperback)

Pro WF is everything both a WF novice and expert could ask for. While Workflow Foundation 4 could be considered a V1 product in some ways, Bruce writes about it as if he's been working with it for years. The examples he describes are well thought out and make sense from a "real application" perspective. He also does a great job explaining some of the concepts such as custom activities, and workflow services with ease and in a manner that is absorable first read through. My only criticism would be that he doesn't discuss building non-service workflow services.

If you read no other chapter in this book except one, Chapter 16 - Advanced Custom Activities is a must.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent WF book, August 17, 2010

By 

Hidden Dragon "cym" (Aurora, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pro WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 4 (Paperback)

I bought all WF 4 books available on the market, but this is the only book that I constantly come back for answers. The author covered the topics of custom activities really well. I now know how to design a non-trivial custom activity using all the techniques outlined in the book (ActivityDesigner, NativeActivity, etc).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great content; poor printing, November 29, 2010

By 

Marshall Rosenstein ".NET Nerd" (Salem, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pro WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 4 (Paperback)

This tome builds on the previous edition of the book updated for WWF4. WWF4 is much improved over WWF 3.5, so the examples are specific to the new version. There's lots of detailed discussion centered around walkthrough examples.

There is a serious flaw with this printing of the book in that all of the table layouts are incorrectly aligned. The contents of the first column of the tables are truncated and then pushed into the second column, so the alignment of each table is off. This makes the tables very hard to read. Most of the examples list the variables that you need to create by using tables, so it slows you down a great deal.