Programming WCF Services Programming :: Education by Design Store

Editorial Review
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.

Customer Reviews

A great read for developers with a basic understanding of wcf

2008-09-16
This book is pretty comprehensive. I started learning WCF with the 15-part web series provided by Mrs. Bustamante that accompanies her book. Learning WCF: A Hands-on Guide

I highly recommend her read if you are getting started. However, if you have some familiarity with WCF - this one will take you further. It has plenty of easy-to-understand code samples and a wonderful best practice section near the index. I have been able to incorporate things in this book with business - and that is what really counts.

Dont expect much

2008-08-25
Writing is art like programming or painting, not every one can be a writer, I cant be a writer, but i know that about myself.
Being technically competent and knowlagable about something does not
nesserarily means you can now go and write a book about it.
The author is a failure when it comes to writing specially technical
books.

a good book writer is for example "Jon Skeet" other writers should take
a look at his style.

Another great one from Juval

2008-04-10
I've been a fan of Juval ever since I took an al-day seminar with him at DevConnections a few years ago. He's a great teach and a great writer. However, he is not for beginners.

Very good book about WCF.

2008-03-29
I have previously read Juval Lowy's Programming .NET Components and it was one of few excellent books which gave deeper explanation about .NET. This book is as great as that one and only one of the few books giving a good explanation about WCF and its internals.

The WCF Bible

2008-03-21
Absolutely the best book I've read on Windows Communication Foundation. A must have book. Juwal explain every single WCF detail in a very well simple form but this don't break the value of this excellent book. A book written for beginners, intermediate and professional WCF developers.

Well done, Juwal.

Well done Juval!

2008-03-17
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.

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.

Very Thorough Reference On WCF 2008-02-29
WCF is one of the four major application programming interfaces introduced as part of .NET Framework 3.0. With its enormous power and flexibility, WCF has a very complex and multilayered architecture. After reading some nice overviews on WCF and even writing some simple code with out-of-box facilities provided by WCF, one may get a misleading impression of it being simple and straightforward. Once to delve into real world programming, you would be exposed to huge number of issues and complexities that in most cases may not be overcome without thorough understanding of the subject.
Juval Lowy's book does an outstanding job ob systematically and thoroughly uncovering practically all aspects of WCF programming. Not only it presents a simple to understand architectural picture of WCF in general and various architectural and functional subsystems, but also abandons with practical and thorough explanations of the details of virtually all aspects of WCF.
This book is not a beginner book. For starting with WCF I would recommend Michele Bustamante's book "Learning WCF". Lowy's book is a thorough reference on WCF that soon becomes your primary source of information.
I would like also to note that it does not seem to be the intent of the book to reflect on all internal plumbing of WCF, which realistically needs lot of experimentation. You may find Justin Smith's book as a good supplement to Lowy's book on custom channels and behaviors.

An exhaustive study 2008-02-28
This is THE book to get if you want to master WCF. Author's remarkable ability to jam enormous information in terse paragraphs without making it boring is astonishing, to say the least. If you have read "Programming .net Components" by Juval, you'd know what I mean.

However, here is a warning to the clueless; this book demands a keen and experienced mind. It is not for the faint of heart. For the initiated, "Learning WCF: A Hands-on Guide" is probably a better choice.

Great in-depth coverage of WCF 2008-02-15
This is an excellent book that I would recommend getting after you already have a basic idea of what WCF is. Obviously you can start with this book, but it is drinking from the fire hose. Once you have a basic idea of what WCF is and how it works - get this book to really understand it.

The essential text on WCF 2008-01-23
This is reading material of the highest quality. Juval Lowy has the true master's ability to make potentially complicated material seem simple and obvious and easy to understand. He does this by combining deep knowledge of the subject matter with extremely clear writing. This is a book I read on the train in the morning, and refer to constantly while I am working on services during the day.

Throughout the book Mr. Lowy develops helper classes that plug some gaps in WCF and make the whole process of working with it easier. This is a plus, but if you don't want to use them, you don't have to.

Stable mate Michele Leroux Bustamante's book takes a more hands-on approach via the inclusion of labs, and quite frankly I think you need both.

WCF is both a deep and a wide technology, and you need a collection of top-quality resources in order to really 'get' it. "Programming WCF Services" is my favourite. Be sure to check out Appendix C, the WCF Coding Standard; he kept the best 'til last!