Customer Reviews

Programming WCF Services

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I read with interest some of the comments from other reviewers, and I feel that there is some slight clarification required on the positioning of this book. I don't normally comment on other authors' works, but I believe that one or two of the criticisms in other reviews are possibly a little misplaced.

Now, as author of WCF Step By Step, this might sound like I am blowing my own trumpet a little, but this is not the intention. Juval's book is quite superb, and if you are an experienced Web services (or even Remoting) developer who wants to know the ins and outs of how WCF works, then read this book. However, I would argue that this is not a book for someone who is new to the services arena no matter how experienced a developer they are.

In many ways I am very envious of Juval. This is the book that I would love to have written for MS Press, but they felt, quite rightly in my opinion, first that this would quickly become a crowded market, and secondly that there was a need for a book that covered the basics to get people jump started beyond the documentation available on MSDN.

Juval's book is an essential reference work that all WCF developers should have on their desk. However, to get up and running with WCF and to make sure that you fully understand the concepts, you might need to work through something more basic first.

I just bought this book and have breezed through most of it. So far, AFAIK, I've picked up each WCF book out there and while all of them are quite good, I was very glad I got this one. Very glad indeed.

If there's one thing this book really brings to the table it's that it really explains architectural 'big picture' aspects of WCF. Reminiscent of how Rocky Lhotka used his Business Objects books to walk through the CSLA, Juval has a series of utilities wrapped into a framework and he walks through 'why' he made them like he did.

This approach is excellent.

AFAIK, this is the biggest of the WCF books I've read running around 600 Pages including the appendices.

The first three chapters discuss the basics of WCF. It covers Data Contracts, SErvice Contracts and WCF Essentials. He dedicates a whole chapter to the subject of Data Contracts and it's ostensibly the most detailed discusson of Data Contracts I've read.

He moves on to Instance Management (spends about 30 pages doing it) and it was insightful to say the least.

Next was Operations. I thought this was one of the weaker chapters of the book, but it's also comparitively short (and realize that I'm rating the book a 5 - so 'weak' is relative - it's still a great discussion)

THe discussion of Faults comes next. It's concise and to the point without getting tangential.

Next comes Transactions. It goes about 70 pages and leaves you wanting for nothing. Stated simply, it's excellent.

Concurrency Management comes next and again, it's power lies in the fact it's direct and to the point while covering the subject matter thoroughly.

Queued Services comes next. To be honest, I haven't given this chapter more than a cursory read so I won't comment on it. What I read I liked thought.

It concludes with Security and he dedicates roughly 100 pages to the subject. Superb!

He goes on to the appendices where he discusses "Service Orientation" . I suspect most people that read his book already understand this, but it's insightful and is still worth reading even if you are already thoroughly conversant in SO.

THe next piece is the Publish-Subscribe Service discussion. Pretty good overall

Finally it's WCF Coding Standards. Ok, let me start by saying that this is VERY useful. It's a great summary and serves as a very helpful reference. However, I wish he explained some of the points a little more b/c In a few cases, I don't remember seeing the points emphasized much and it's a little hard to fully grasp the "WHy"

For instance, under the Essentials section, #10 states "Do not use SvcUtil or Visual Studio 2005 to generate a config file." In the text, the only thing I saw mentioned on this note was that he's conflicted about the COnfigEditor b/c while it's helpful, it can serve as a crutch. This danger in his opinion offsets any convenience benefit. Ok, if that's why this rule is here, then great. But I really don't know for sure. Most of the other items he mentions are well documented in the text (and maybe this was too and I just missed it, but honestly, I've looked).

There aren't many items I was unsure of, but there were a few. Page references would fix this issue (b/c spelling out why would probably be overkill).

Ok, so my one gripe is that in a supplemental section, he could have done one thing better. By any standard, that qualifies a book for a 5 Rating ;-)

Even the back page of the book mentions "If you choose to learn WCF, you have choosen well...", this is not for learning WCF.
I thought I could learn WCF with this book because of its table of content, but you can't.

This is more or less a reference book. If you already know how to implement WCF and need to know some details regarding some certain
implementation, than it seems to be fine.

Because they mention on the back page one can learn WCF with it, I am disappointed about this book.

This book is excellent. I find myself reading chapters over and over not because they are difficult to understand, but because they are chock-full of useful information. This is information not found in other WCF books and it really highlights the fact that Juval was very close to the WCF code and the WCF developers.

Keep in mind this book will not hold your hand through coding a WCF service. If you need that level of detail (I did), then I recommend an afternoon with the internet where you will find plenty of online 'HelloWorld' tutorials. However, once you become comfortable with writing a few simple services, this book becomes invaluable. By the end of Chapter 1, you will have refreshed your memory on writing a simple service, and you will have answered questions that you never thought to ask (things like, What is the default port of the TCP address? Can you have more than one service share a TCP port?). The rest of the chapters are just as informative, and as a result this book excells as not only a book on Programming WCF Services, but also as a reference book on WCF as well. I am constantly lending it out, and I am repeatedly refering to it when I get those 'how do I..' questions from coworkers.

In a company where we are constantly looking for programming Patterns and Best Practices, the Appendix on Coding Standards was icing on the cake for me. Highly recommended for intermediate to advanced WCF programming.

Read this book after reading a simpler book on WCF. Most of the chapters in this book are disconnected. There are some good subject matter covered but they get usefull when you really write a real Service and you can get it from MSDN. I did'nt see anything like pitfalls and better approach to doing a task. Also its not very concisely written and lot of filler code.

This book was actually my first exposure to WCF. Many people describe it as a more advanced WCF book than the other more basic ones out there. Although I tend to agree that it is more advanced than other books, I disagree with the implicit suggestion that you shouldn't start with this book if your a beginner. I generally gain better command over a subject by going deep enough to understand what's going on, and what capabilities I have at my disposal.

"Programming WCF Services" does just that. It starts with the simple basics which is important for the novice. But as soon as you understand the basics, you yearn for much more deeper content, which follows in the chapters to come. Although I wish the book would have had a chapter devoted completely to Channels, the overall depth of the book is enough for most use cases that WCF developers will encounter.

Something i really like about Juval Lowy's writing specifically is that he walks you through the thought process of the underlying problem. He shows you the different options that are possible, and then gives his final opinion, thus leaving you satisfied as to why a particular methodology is better than another.

If Juval would consider a 2nd edition, I would recommend a chapter on custom Channel development, and RESTful web services.

All in all, a great book for beginning and intermediate WCF service developers.

The legend has done it again!! Juval's other books on .NET software engineering were good, but this book exceeds them all in content, precision, and examples. The book follows closely to his Master WCF courses he has taught in the past. The book's first chapter on WCF Essentials starts the reader off on the proper trail to mastering WCF properly. The examples are concise and helpful. The book is a great read and extrememly informative. The Appendix which contains an introduction to Service-Orientation is also a very helpful.

Bottom Line: if you have anything to do with WCF, go buy and use this book!

The book is very detailed. I personally didn't like that much the writting style of the author. He begins talking the WCF lingo from start. Also, the introduction where the basics of the concepts are presented is too short.

This book provides true insight in WCF and offers a lot of guidelines to help you in designing your services right. As before, Juval helped me look at WCF from a different perspective and gave me several times the "hmmm I didn't think about it that way" or "oh you can do it like that"-feeling.

Many samples or books (I didn't say all of them :)) on SOA take the classic "StockQuote" or "Online Bookstore" approach which are great for kick-off but tend to bore you after a while because they don't provide you with anything new. This book really helps bringing your skills to the next level.

Many of the resources can be used straight of the shelf in your own projects. This makes this book really value for money.

SOA, Interoperability, WS*, the last vestiges of COM and DCOM. Welcome to WCF. This book is a gem for the serious architect. Juval Lowy's ability to guide the reader through layers of complexity, and present it in a simple form is a talent lost on most. The book is filled pragmatic examples, and guides the reader through scenarios, and leads to conclusion of the architecture design that you will be implementing in a professional capacity. If you want to really understand why Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is so important, this is an essential read.


My recommendation. Just buy it.