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Pro WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 3.0 (Expert's Voice in .Net) By Bruce Bukovics ( Apress )
Release Date: 2007-02-16
Average Customer Rating:
List Price: $49.99
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Product Description
Windows Workflow Foundation is a ground-breaking addition to the core of the .NET 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 a workflow-based solution 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 3.0 provides you with the skills you need to incorporate WF in your applications. This book gets you up to speed with Windows Workflow Foundation quickly and comprehensively. The practical aspects of using WF are covered in a lively tutorial style with each workflow concept illustrated in C#. 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.
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 Verbose and repetitive
The book has entire paragraphs that need to be stricken; many many paragraphs. Do you know why data integrity is important? Well, you will get lectured why whether you do or not. Sadly, some paragraphs that do contain meat are repeats of points already stated earlier in the same chapter. This made the book very difficult to read as my brain became quickly and thoroughly bored.
Secondly, the author uses some annoying class to setup and start workflows. Although this could be helpful for some organizations it does detract from the learning process.
Lastly, this should be in the Beginning series from Apress. This book did not cover topics in depth. Example: in the custom persistence service there is a box stating that you would normally want to use IPendingWork to make the persist transactional but he wasn't going to show you how; thanks a lot. I found deeper and broader coverage from the WF samples from Microsoft. His decent examples probably border on copyright infringement of the MS samples.
WF Samples:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms741723(VS.85).aspx
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 Good, not geat ( jersey@jersey1.net )
(Note - I struggled between choosing 3 or 4 stars and finally decided on 3. It's really a 3.5 star book.)
Good points:
- Great explanations of concepts
- Tons of code demos
Bad points:
- Code demos were rather, well, cheesy. I grok wanting simple examples, but I would have prefered at least a couple that were a tad realistic (and didn't start with a disclaimer saying "this isn't the way one would do this in real life").
I was rather frustrated by the end of the book with the examples, and that's why I gave it 3 stars.
Having said that, this book does touch on basically every facet of WF and I feel relatively strong on the subject now. I would recommend it to anyone getting into WF. Just note the examples may leave a little to be desired.
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 Great book on workflow ( mcgurk23 )
You need to learn workflow? Get this book. Its the CLR via C# of workflow books.
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 Covers Material Pretty Well ( jmarken )
Very good book - covered the material well. It uses detailed examples and steps all along the way, even showing VS.NET dialogs and what to do in each. I ran into a few issues to figure out on my own when actually implementing real workflows in professional code, but WF just carries a pretty steep learning curve and you have to pay your dues somewhat. No book could ever cover every possible scenario. The workflow manager class sets a good example, but you'll want to build one that's more robust and tailored to you own coding and design styles.
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Another satisfied customer!
This is THE nuts and bolts book for Windows WF. The author is very good at communicating his point succinctly making all 684 pages a joy to read for those interested in WF.
All areas of WF are covered in good detail. You learn everything from developing a no-code workflow to developing dynamic workflow and also workflow that communicates with web services and much more. The author starts small, in the first 13 pages you develop a "Hello Workflow" app and he goes over all of the auto-generated code. From there the book takes off.
One thing I really like about this book is that it really does assume you are at least an intermediate developer. You don't have to read 1/2 a page on how to create a new project, he just assumes you know how. I don't know how many times i've read an "intermediate" book that introduces collections by chapter 7 and shows you an animal hierarchy by chapter 12. For once it's nice to read a book cover to cover and just learn the whole time. The pacing in this book is perfect. It's not too hard to grasp any of the concepts as they are being presented yet it's not the type of book where you have to thumb through 1/2 the book because you already know how to declare variables and apply conditional logic.
At the time of this review all reviews have been 5 stars - and for good reason. If you're a developer comfortable with C# but have no knowledge of WF then this is the book for you.
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Addiction
