Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Programming Windows® Identity Foundation (Dev

Top positive review

The Lost WIF Documentation

Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2011

If you've used Windows Identity Foundation at all, you'll find that the documentation on it is lacking. There are a ton of entry-level "getting started" articles combined with even more "high-level theory" articles out there, but really not much in the way of concrete information.

This is the Lost Windows Identity Foundation Documentation.

It's great from a reference and from a how-to standpoint, including plenty of diagrams and code snippets that help to explain how different scenarios work and how those scenarios specifically apply to WIF.

I was working on a custom passive STS using WIF and found it nearly impossible to do without this book. Once I had it, there was more in it than I was even hoping for - explanations of how to handle sliding token expiration, for example, which is pretty much nowhere to be found out on the web.

It's also been really handy in helping to explain complex federation issues to my team, who are not nearly as neck-deep in this stuff as I am. After we got the first copy of this, we actually ended up getting a second because it's so useful and people sort of "hog it" and forget to return it to the library.

The only thing that's missing in my opinion is how to work with WIF in an ASP.NET MVC environment. WIF was written primarily with web forms in mind, so all of the code samples and scenarios described in this book revolve around web forms. It's sort of an unmentioned "exercise for the reader" to get things working with MVC. That's more a fault with WIF than the book, though, hence I am not docking a star for missing it.

If you use WIF, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of this book.

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

Sureshoe

Long on Talk, Short on Code

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2011

If you're looking for a semi-exhaustive explanation of plumbing and details, this might be the book for you. Maybe.

I was looking for some code samples and reasonable quick-start type guides to at least get a proof of concept up and running, but there is no sort of cohesion to the book that makes it possible. The first part labors on about federated identity and fundamentals, which is fine to an extent. However, it just keeps going on with theory... again, which is fine if you want to sit and read a book to learn about federated security.

A preferred approach, and the one followed by most good technical books, is to start with a basic example and explain the theory behind it in small chunks.

I was surprised by how frustrating this book is based on the other reviews, so maybe I'm missing something everyone else is getting. But, if you're looking for a reasonable quick start to WIF with meat to back up the code, this probably isn't a good fit for you.

4 people found this helpful

27 total ratings, 23 with reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

From the United States

Techouse

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2017

Verified Purchase

Awsome book!

Helpful

Jason

The book was good when it came out but it isn't usable anymore ...

Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2015

Verified Purchase

The book was good when it came out but it isn't usable anymore in 4.5... which is sad since it's the only book available. From an author who is actually member of the WIF team it is quite sad that the documentation is not adapted when the technology changes, what else do we have at our disposal ??

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Timmy_A

Didn't meet my expectations

Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2015

Verified Purchase

I bought this book because I prefer to study a new technology in "inside-out" way. As an experienced developer I want to look "under the hood", to see how technology works internally. While the book provides a lot of insider info not just about WIF itself but also about rationale behind its creation it does it in very incoherent way.

The book starts very well. First 2 chapters provides a good introduction into both WIF and the principles of claims based identity. Author describes why claim base identity is important and what kind of problems it tries to solve. I especially liked the comparison between evolution of computer drivers and identity solutions. The problem is that the book didn't keep the pace it set.

Next 4 chapters explain WIF usage in 3 different technologies ASP.NET, WCF and Azure. All chapters contain some theory with very short snippets of actual code. Useful theory is scattered to these 4 chapters without some general coherency. The book doesn't have some governing idea where each chapter should start, how much theory it should explain and in which order it should do. In the end of day I had to go back and forward, to re-read what I had already read to remind the details. Another problem is the lack of source code. Even though the book is marked as a WIF book, there is very little of WIF code. WIF classes are not presented in systematic way, just (like theory) scattered here and there. The last thing to mention is sample code. There isn't. Just a reference to official WIF samples.

While all these issues, Programming WIF is still useful. Author is undoubtedly an expert to WIF. With better organization and more systematic approach to WIF itself this could have been a great book. But on 240 pages it's simply not possible. The book should have been at least 2 times bigger than it actually is.

The last remark. WIF has changed several times (now it's an integral part of .NET framework) but while configuration has changed significantly (which made me a lot of headaches), WIF classes are very similar to those ones presented in the book. So with little effort you can easily find their counterparts to .NET 4.5..

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Travis L. Watson

Great book, significantly out of date

Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2013

This is a great book. I've read it almost cover to cover and reference it frequently. It feels primarily targeted at the Relying Party role: the consumer of claims based identity. If you want to be an Identity Provider, you really need to look elsewhere.

IMPORTANT: This book is out of date! WIF and the tooling changed significantly with .NET 4.5 (it's now part of the framework instead of an SDK, and there's a new Identity and Access Tool extension for VS2012).

With that said, I don't know of any other book that is current that I would recommend, so I suggest buying this book and reading it through, then following up by researching WIF 4.5 (Microsoft has a nice overview available) and Vittorio's blog.

Helpful

Rado

Very practical book

Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2013

Verified Purchase

Very practical book for everyone fighting with WIF. Especially explains bugs in WIF SDK. Good starting point not only for beginners but for professionals with deeper level of understanding.

Helpful

Robert S. Sailors

Dated

Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2013

Verified Purchase

Theory seemed good. The Azure presentation has changed since the book was written. Some of the examples aren't quite current

Helpful

irnbru

Pretty good introduction to WIF but code missing!

Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2012

This book is a pretty good introduction to WIF, but the writing is clumsy, the code is missing. For example I couldn't find the class SingleSignOnManager anywhere for the Single Sign Out implementation (SSOut)

That is a big oversight, what a shame!

Please Vittorio, can you please post all the code used for this book in a new package.
You already post a great tutorial about WIF with a big package (not always easy to use as the install script makes lot of changes on the machine), but please don't forget the code used in your own book too :)

I also think explanation can be not clear cut, for example I think the SSOut implementation is makeshift solution, not really solid. The redirection to the right STS is also a wee bit brittle. It looks more like a quick fix than a solid design...

I respect the author as Security is a hard field, moreover WIF was still nascent, hopefully it won't turn out to be still born.

Helpful

David

Could be much better

Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2012

This book is not bad but lacks of global cohesion. The concepts are disseminated here and there with some repetitions. One could argue this is made on purpose but it doesn't work for me. For a complicated topic like security this flaw is really dissuasive. As many other developers, my time is precious I prefer authors going straight to the point.

To be honest, the main advantage of this book is the lack of competition: I haven't found a serious alternative on the market.
Besides the MSDN pages dealing with WIF are a complete joke.

As I had no choice, I finished the book but I hope some better books will be published quickly.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

LazyShopper

A gentle Intro to Federation and WIF

Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2012

Verified Purchase

Even though I was familiar with the federation technology, I appreciated the hold-your-hand intro to it, esp. in the MS context. A lot of folks will benefit from it, while some can just skim/skip portions. This book is great for architects who may not write much code (if any) but who need to understand the WIF thoroughly since it is such an important piece of the MS stack. Clearly this is a book for initial immersion in WIF (and a very good one for it), not for continued use as a reference.

I look forward to future output from the author.

Helpful

So-So by Itself, but Must Have...

Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2011

Verified Purchase

Because there really aren't any good alternatives out there.

As far as technical books go, this one is only so-so. The chapters are somewhat oddly organized -- or one could say disorganized -- and make it difficult to mentally compartmentalize the lessons.

Some of the examples use odd choices of scenarios and it could use more code samples and discussions of the internals and less of the high level concepts (perhaps it's the organization that's throwing me off).

In the end, it's a middling book that becomes a near must-have because of the current lack of in-depth coverage on the topic. I would recommend it, but it's not the most practical of books when it comes to gaining a deep technical understanding of the topic at hand.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Need customer service?

‹ See all details for Programming Windows® Identity Foundation (Dev - Pro)

5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

Programming Windows® Identity Foundation (Dev - Pro)

›

Customer reviews

Customer reviews

Programming Windows® Identity Foundation (Dev - Pro)

Top positive review

Top critical review

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

From the United States

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

Programming Windows® Identity Foundation (Dev - Pro) › Customer reviews

Customer reviews

Programming Windows® Identity Foundation (Dev - Pro)

Top positive review

Top critical review

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

From the United States

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

Programming Windows® Identity Foundation (Dev - Pro)

›

Customer reviews