Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation Step by Step (Step By Step Developer Series) (Paperback)

by John Sharp (Author)
Key Phrases: callback contract, application console window, add the following using statements, Visual Studio, Service Configuration Editor, Step By Step (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Teach yourself the essentials of using Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) with this practical, hands-on tutorial. Understanding WCF--a key component of the new WinFX development environment--is essential for every developer who works with Web services in a service-oriented architecture. WCF helps connect separate services so that they can interoperate effectively, sharing processes, data, and results. With the popular STEP BY STEP approach, you work at your own pace through sequential, learn-by-doing exercises to understand the fundamental techniques for using WCF. You'll get the context for understanding how services interoperate, how they relate to service orientation to object-orientation, and hands-on guidance for creating WCF-enabled services for Windows. You'll also get a CD featuring practice exercises and code samples for each chapter.

From the Publisher
Key Book Benefits:

-Provides sequential, step by step guidance for creating WCF-enabled services
-Delivers context for understanding how services interoperate and how to relate service-orientation to the more-familiar object-orientation
-Perfect for new-to-topic developers
-Includes a CD with exercises and code samples for each chapter

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (January 31, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735623368
• ISBN-13: 978-0735623361
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #120,474 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book from start to finish, February 18, 2007

By	William G. Ryan "Uber Book Nerd" (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've read quite a few books in the Step by Step series and am often a little frustrated with them. By their very nature, they walk you through specific scenarios and explain them to you. They typically do this quite well. And while I typically get a lot out of this, I often am left wanting for more. This isn't a knock on the series, it's just an inherent limitation. After all, no author can foresee every scenario a reader might have.

This book was a little different though.

The first three chapters were pretty typical in that they were the basic use cases you'd expect. THen you hit Chapter 4 "Protecting an Enterprise Service" and things get interesting fast. From start to finish, just about every single security question I had was answered here. Chapter 5 builds on it and expands the scenarios to the internet and by the time you get through those two chapters, you'll 'get' security and WCF.

The book then goes onto Service Contracts, State management, Transactions and Reliable sessions. I was a little underwhelmed with the discussion on Reliable Sessions but it was decent.

Chapter 10 goes on to using configuration to manage services and man, this really helped me to make progress. It's so easy to screw up simple things in configuration and end up hitting a wall, but this got me through it.

Chapter 11 goes on to discuss OneWay/Asyn operations (which is one of the more straightforward aspects of WCF). Nothing dramatic here but again, a pretty good discussion.

Chatper 12 goes onto Performance. Superb! Too often when I was learning the WCF, I was satisfied to get things working and didn't worry nearly enough about performance. Eventually though, you're going to have to deal with Performance and this chapter gets you there.

Another great touch was Chatper 15 - Managing Identity with Windows Cardspace. I'm not personally using Cardspace but this chapter was just plain cool and a great touch.

All in all, this is the best book in the Step by Step series I've ever read. There's some stiff competition to be the 'best' of the WCF books out there, but this book is definitely going to be a contender.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not good for Vista and VS 2008 users, February 8, 2008

By	Gary D. Blakely "Gary Blakely" (Anaheim, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is both good and bad. The good is that the author is skilled at explaining complex material in simple straightforward manner and this is a rare skill for computer book authors. Also, the labs are more interesting than the standard "hello world" type of labs. However, like most of the WCF books out now, it is written for Visual Studio 2005 and for XP and not for Vista and Visual Studio 2008. The lab solutions don't even work. The worst is that the author and the publisher have no VS 2008 lab downloads or update notes. Some of the other authors have went to the trouble of doing that.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Waste of Time, September 13, 2007

By	reviewer (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Book appears not to have had a technical review -- numerous configuration details required to get the code working on Vista are missing. After 40+ hours of troubleshooting gave up in Chapter 2.