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Programming WCF Services
Written by Microsoft software legend Juval Lowy, Programming WCF Services is the authoritative introduction to Microsoft's new, and some say revolutionary, unified platform for developing service-oriented applications (SOA) on Windows. Relentlessly practical, the book delivers insight, not documentation, to teach developers what they need to know to build the next generation of SOAs.
After explaining the advantages of service-orientation for application design and teaching the basics of how to develop SOAs using WCF, the book shows how you can take advantage of built-in features such as service hosting, instance management, asynchronous calls, synchronization, reliability, transaction management, disconnected queued calls and security to build best in class applications. Programming WCF Services focuses on the rationale behind particular design decisions, often shedding light on poorly-documented and little-understood aspects of SOA development. Developers and architects will learn not only the how of WCF programming, but also relevant design guidelines, best practices, and pitfalls. Original techniques and utilities provided by the author throughout the book go well beyond anything that can be found in conventional sources.
Based on experience and insight gained while taking part in the strategic design of WCF and working with the team that implemented it, Programming WCF Services provides experienced working professionals with the definitive work on WCF. Not only will this book make you a WCF expert, it will make you a better software engineer. It's the Rosetta Stone of WCF.
After explaining the advantages of service-orientation for application design and teaching the basics of how to develop SOAs using WCF, the book shows how you can take advantage of built-in features such as service hosting, instance management, asynchronous calls, synchronization, reliability, transaction management, disconnected queued calls and security to build best in class applications. Programming WCF Services focuses on the rationale behind particular design decisions, often shedding light on poorly-documented and little-understood aspects of SOA development. Developers and architects will learn not only the how of WCF programming, but also relevant design guidelines, best practices, and pitfalls. Original techniques and utilities provided by the author throughout the book go well beyond anything that can be found in conventional sources.
Based on experience and insight gained while taking part in the strategic design of WCF and working with the team that implemented it, Programming WCF Services provides experienced working professionals with the definitive work on WCF. Not only will this book make you a WCF expert, it will make you a better software engineer. It's the Rosetta Stone of WCF.
640 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
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181 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
November 11, 2008
Gave me the information I needed on WCF. Good guidance for best practices in the WCF Coding Convention appendix. The declarative security portion was good stuff.
Useful, but not inspiring. I didn't like the author's "I'm the authority, so here's how you should do it" tone. Also glad I didn't pay for the book, as it has bunches of method signatures and enum's defined straight out of the implementation. These are repeats of the .NET Framework documentation and the actual WCF class library metadata.
When I read a book on a software technology, I want new and insights, which this book delivered. But repeat code feels like filler, not value.
Useful, but not inspiring. I didn't like the author's "I'm the authority, so here's how you should do it" tone. Also glad I didn't pay for the book, as it has bunches of method signatures and enum's defined straight out of the implementation. These are repeats of the .NET Framework documentation and the actual WCF class library metadata.
When I read a book on a software technology, I want new and insights, which this book delivered. But repeat code feels like filler, not value.
March 2, 2014
Not a good introductory book. This book has a lot of advanced material and is not an appropriate first book on WCF. It also suffers from some bad choices regarding what is inluded and formatting. As one example, every time an attribute is mentioned, the code for the attribute declaration is in the text. This gets in the way when you have to differentiate between the important code and the attribute declaration. It also needs better organization or formatting. The security chapter goes on for 104 pages and is divided into sections on different scenarios that are difficult to tell apart. [return][return]However, I expect to be coming back to this book when I need to understand how things really work in WCF and when I'm looking for more advanced information. It's a good book to have in your WCF library, but probably not the first one.
November 21, 2015
Not a full re-read.
I've read this book few yrs ago (2nd Ed.) and at that time it was (by faaaar) the best book about WCF - superbly detailed, clear - true one stop shop for anyone interested in not just learning the basics, but entering the path of system integration mastery.
Now I've just went through all the changes I could identify between 2ed. & 4ed. - the most notable of them: ServiceModelEx & Service Fabric. And the latter is by far the best addition to the book -> very fresh topic (not officially released as RTM yet!) that is about to gain a lot of interest (I believe). Unfortunately ... the description is ... very stiff & "dry". Sometimes it feels like preview documentation than actual paper of someone who has tried the tech by himself.
Therefore, just 4 stars, I've expected better.
I've read this book few yrs ago (2nd Ed.) and at that time it was (by faaaar) the best book about WCF - superbly detailed, clear - true one stop shop for anyone interested in not just learning the basics, but entering the path of system integration mastery.
Now I've just went through all the changes I could identify between 2ed. & 4ed. - the most notable of them: ServiceModelEx & Service Fabric. And the latter is by far the best addition to the book -> very fresh topic (not officially released as RTM yet!) that is about to gain a lot of interest (I believe). Unfortunately ... the description is ... very stiff & "dry". Sometimes it feels like preview documentation than actual paper of someone who has tried the tech by himself.
Therefore, just 4 stars, I've expected better.
left-for-a-while
November 29, 2011THIS REVIEW IS STILL IN PROGRESS
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I really don't like the dry way of explaining the subject of this book. WCF (or any programming topic) is dull as it is so why make it worse by the approach of listing facts and have no natural flow of the topic which is complicated even for a senior developer like me.
This is just listing of facts about WCF which is great but that's no way to learn something.
There's no guidance from the author on how to execute a certain example. There's no encouragement to build the example yourself. It's like the author is saying: It's there, you wanna try to build it, go ahead, I won't stop you but don't count on following on with this example because next section it might not be there anymore.
There's no clear distinguishing from the author on which parts belong to WCF classes, which are classes that are built by the author, and which are examples to demonstrate something.
Here's a specific example of the author explaining his work instead of the WCF classes. Page 244 explains the DuplexChannelFactory. It lists some members of the class, the author makes a comment about how it's difficult to use this class because the parameter is of type object and is not type safe (which is correct) then he offers his modified class which is type safe and then start to explain how to use this modified class. Well, I don't want to use this modified class. I just don't want to. Even if it's great, wonderful and amazing. I didn't buy the book to read about Programming Juval Lowy's WCF. No, I want to read about .NET's WCF with all stupidity, flaws, and lack of type safety.
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I really don't like the dry way of explaining the subject of this book. WCF (or any programming topic) is dull as it is so why make it worse by the approach of listing facts and have no natural flow of the topic which is complicated even for a senior developer like me.
This is just listing of facts about WCF which is great but that's no way to learn something.
There's no guidance from the author on how to execute a certain example. There's no encouragement to build the example yourself. It's like the author is saying: It's there, you wanna try to build it, go ahead, I won't stop you but don't count on following on with this example because next section it might not be there anymore.
There's no clear distinguishing from the author on which parts belong to WCF classes, which are classes that are built by the author, and which are examples to demonstrate something.
Here's a specific example of the author explaining his work instead of the WCF classes. Page 244 explains the DuplexChannelFactory. It lists some members of the class, the author makes a comment about how it's difficult to use this class because the parameter is of type object and is not type safe (which is correct) then he offers his modified class which is type safe and then start to explain how to use this modified class. Well, I don't want to use this modified class. I just don't want to. Even if it's great, wonderful and amazing. I didn't buy the book to read about Programming Juval Lowy's WCF. No, I want to read about .NET's WCF with all stupidity, flaws, and lack of type safety.
April 15, 2011
Reading it for the second time now; I should have taken the certification exam while I had a WCF project...
Yes, Lowy is a little too passionate about WCF for my taste ("every method should be a service") - but that's what I like about the book; it has an attitude, and a sensible one as it turns out looking back at some experience of my own. On the other hand, wading through the code samples - especially the base classes and helpers the author has written - are just tiring, especially when reading it as an ebook (as I do now). Not a leisure read for sure.
Yes, Lowy is a little too passionate about WCF for my taste ("every method should be a service") - but that's what I like about the book; it has an attitude, and a sensible one as it turns out looking back at some experience of my own. On the other hand, wading through the code samples - especially the base classes and helpers the author has written - are just tiring, especially when reading it as an ebook (as I do now). Not a leisure read for sure.
November 2, 2014
The book begins with the very basics (WCF Essentials) and soon takes a deep-dive into Service, Data and Operation contracts and other aspects of WCF, making it a useful for both novice and expert readers. The author gives a good number of intricate details about WCF.
I usually either just glance through or skip the appendix of many books that I've read - this one was an exception, read through all the appendices (WCF Coding Standard being a top-notch appendix).
This book will be one of those 'I will use this as a reference handbook' book.
I usually either just glance through or skip the appendix of many books that I've read - this one was an exception, read through all the appendices (WCF Coding Standard being a top-notch appendix).
This book will be one of those 'I will use this as a reference handbook' book.
March 19, 2016
This is complete bible. I read this book from side to side and it is excellent. If You don't know anything, or you know something but You want to know more this is for You. After reading this book you will be very fluent in wcf. You will understand how great this platform is and what excellence features it have. Also after reading it You will find out, that some operation could be done withing couple minutes and You don't have to write it by yourself. This is must read for every .NET developer in SOA environment.
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December 24, 2010I went as long as I could without buying a WCF book, but after burning a few days on WCF minutae that I couldn't resolve via the web I broke down and bought this book.
The TOC looks promising, will see how it turns out in practice.
Bad omen in foreword: "Every .NET program should use WCF". Huh? Er, no.
The TOC looks promising, will see how it turns out in practice.
Bad omen in foreword: "Every .NET program should use WCF". Huh? Er, no.
February 21, 2012
This book was great for learning transactions and the security chapter was thorough yet simplified enough to be easily understood. However, it can be dry at times and he spent a lot of time pushing his extended WCF library.
June 25, 2014
Хорошо рассказано, как пользоваться этой непростой технологией. Но частенько не хватает глубины. Не хватает информации о том, как это всё устроено внутри, какая у WCF идеология, о чём думали разработчики.
April 14, 2008
Very interesting book for Microsoft nerds like me. I wonder when I will get to read a 'fun' book again. Commuting door to door in my car has really cut down on my reading time:(
June 3, 2008
The only book you need to have on your bookshelfd
May 28, 2014
Pretty good so far. I needed a primer that will show how to use WCF in different applications and this book provides a no nonsense description of the nuts and bolts.
September 4, 2012
The book covers all the necessary topics, and in a very understandable and approachable way.
February 26, 2013
Hard to read, good as reference but not to learn from
October 16, 2013
Good reference book for WCF programming
July 16, 2014
Want to implement lot of concept
December 13, 2014
Very extensive for someone that wants to know everything about WCF.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews