Pro WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 3.5

Windows Workflow Foundation is a groundbreaking 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 solutions. 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 3.5 provides you with the skills you need to incorporate WF into 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#. You’ll find 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.

Pro WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 3.5 is written by an experienced Windows and .NET developer. Rather than simply duplicating the available references on the subject, author Bruce Bukovics leads you through a series of practical WF topics that enable you to gain immediate experience and learn how to use the technology as you progress through the book.

What you’ll learn

• WF basics
• Customizing your workflows
• Accessing your workflows in a variety of ways in a variety of situations
• Using WF with web services and ASP.NET
• Integrating WCF and WF

Developers encountering WF and .NET 3.5 for the first time in their professional lives.

Windows Workflow Foundation is a particularly important part of .NET 3.5 as it natively integrates workflows into Visual Studio for the first time. Workflows allow you to chart both human and code interactions as a series of flow-chart diagrams, allowing you to see your code as a series of interacting elements that can move and change rather than as static blocks.

This book aims to provide the reader with a solid grounding in how workflows are implemented, executed, maintained and customized. Given the importance of this technology release and the book’s broad appeal, it will be useful to almost all existing or migrating .NET 3.0 developers and should see very healthy sales as WF is rapidly adopted.

Bruce Bukovics has been a working developer for over 25 years. During this time, he has designed and developed applications in such widely varying areas as banking, corporate finance, credit card processing, payroll processing, and retail automation.

He has first-hand developer experience with C, C++, Delphi, VB, C#, and Java, and he rode the waves of technology as they drifted from mainframe to client/server to n-Tier, from COM to COM+, and from Web Services to .NET Remoting and beyond.

He considers himself a pragmatic programmer. He doesn’t stand on formality and doesn’t do things just because they have always been done that way. He’s willing to look at alternate or unorthodox solutions to a problem if that’s what it takes.

He is currently employed at Radiant Systems, Inc., in Alpharetta, Georgia, as a lead developer and architect in the centralized development group.