Home > Store > Programming > Windows Programming
Essential Windows Workflow Foundation
- By Dharma Shukla, Bob Schmidt
- Published Oct 5, 2006 by Addison-Wesley Professional. Part of the Microsoft Windows Development Series series.
- Copyright 2007
- Dimensions: 7x9-1/4
- Pages: 480
- Edition: 1st
- Book
- ISBN-10: 0-321-39983-8
- ISBN-13: 978-0-321-39983-0
- eBook (Watermarked)
- ISBN-10: 0-321-48721-4
- ISBN-13: 978-0-321-48721-6
Register your product to gain access to bonus material or receive a coupon.
Product Author Bios
Dharma Shukla is an architect at Microsoft working on next-generation programming models. A founding member of the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) team, Dharma played a key role in defining the architecture of WF. Bob Schmidt is a senior program manager at Microsoft working on next-generation programming models. Since 2003, his primary focus has been on the design of WF. Both authors have been involved with the WF project since its inception, and have been responsible for specifying, designing, and developing large portions of the technology.
“Something big is about to happen….”
–From the Foreword by Don Box, Architect, Microsoft Corporation
“If I were writing a Workflow book, this is what I would have written. The material is very well presented with code examples and explanations. Also, I love how the authors discuss the underlying architecture, enabling me to get a really deep understanding of the technology to efficiently design and build my own projects.”
–Jeffrey Richter (http://Wintellect.com)
“Explicit support for workflows in a lightweight framework is a major contribution. Many tough problems traditionally faced by application authors, such as state management in the presence of long-running activities (think weeks or months!), can be addressed systematically by adopting
a workflow approach. Dharma Shukla and Bob Schmidt present the workflow technology under and made accessible by the new workflow foundation in the .NET 3.0 framework, and they do so in an approachable and yet authoritative way that is truly enjoyable.”
–Clemens Szyperski, software architect, Microsoft Corporation
“The Windows Workflow technology combines declarative programming and state machines in a very rich and powerful way, one that is bound to have a profound influence on the way we program in the coming years. In the style of the classic Essential COM by Don Box, Dharma and Bob have done a great job making this technology accessible to any developer already versed in C#, VB, and the .NET Framework, and who wants to achieve declarative enlightenment. Don’t miss out.”
–Joe Duffy, program manager, Common Language Runtime (CLR) team, Microsoft Corporation
“I think WF should and will be used as the main application model for web service applications. Developers working on web services will want to learn about this technology from this book; it comes straight from the source and explains the technology well and in depth.”
–Krzysztof Cwalina, program manager, Microsoft Corporation
“This book provides an enlightening exploration of Windows Workflow Foundation for both the novice and the veteran alike.”
–Nate Talbert, software design engineer, Microsoft Corporation
Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is a groundbreaking approach to writing and executing programs. WF programs are assembled out of resumable program statements called activities, which provide encapsulation of both domainspecific logic and control flow patterns reflective of real-world processes.
In Essential Windows Workflow Foundation, two WF lead architects–Dharma Shukla and Bob Schmidt–offer an under-the-hood look at the technology, explaining the why and not just the how of WF’s key concepts and architecture. Serious WF developers seeking details about how to effectively utilize and extend the framework by writing activities will find cogent explanations and answers here. With simple and illustrative examples, the authors demonstrate exactly how to leverage WF’s extensible programming model to craft domain-specific programs. Drawing on their unique vantage point in designing and developing WF, Shukla and Schmidt deliver authoritative coverage of
- The core concepts and ideas that form the heart of WF’s programming model
- The execution model for activities, with details of the activity automaton, bookmarking, scheduling, and the threading model of the WF runtime
- Advanced execution concepts, including activity execution contexts, transactions, persistence points, passivation, fault handling, cancellation, compensation, and synchronization
- Hosting the WF runtime in applications
- The activity component model, with details of validation, compilation, serialization, and visualization
- Databinding, XAML, dependency properties, and WF program metadata
- Declarative conditions and rules, activity designers, and designer hosting
- Custom control flow patterns ranging from simple sequencing and iteration to more complex graphs and state machines
- Dynamic editing of running WF program instances
Essential Windows Workflow Foundation is the definitive resource for developers seeking an in-depth understanding of this novel technology.
Dharma Shukla is an architect at Microsoft working on next-generation programming models. A founding member of the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) team, Dharma played a key role in defining the architecture of WF. Bob Schmidt is a senior program manager at Microsoft working on next-generation programming models. Since 2003, his primary focus has been on the design of WF. Both authors have been involved with the WF project since its inception, and have been responsible for specifying, designing, and developing large portions of the technology.
Contents
About the Authors xiii
Foreword xv
Preface xvii
Acknowledgments xxi
1 Deconstructing WF 1
2 WF Programs 33
3 Activity Execution 53
4 Advanced Activity Execution 111
5 Applications 179
6 Transactions 241
7 Advanced Authoring 259
8 Miscellanea 325
Appendix A Activity Automaton 395
Appendix B Control Flow Patterns 397
Index 435
Author's Site
Visit the author's web site: www.dharmashukla.com
|
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
This is good stuff, By
This review is from: Essential Windows Workflow Foundation (Paperback)
This isn't a cookbook, if it were, it would've say so in the title. It does have plenty of examples, and quite interesting ones at that. I would recommend reading the foreword and absorbing its message before starting the book itself. The programming techniques used in WF have been around for a long time. Anyone who have ever written code in a programming language that supports continuations would find the concepts quite familiar. For me the first few chapters really helped tie the concepts of WF to what I already know. After that it was easy to understand the rest.If you don't know what continuations are, there are a lot of tutorials and attempts at explaining it on the web. Many web frameworks (Seaside, Cocoon, Uncommon web, etc) are designed around it. WF is Microsoft's crack at a continuations framework. If you know what continuations are, you will find this book very straightforward. Bookmarks = Continuations Consider only the case of... Read more
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Workflow under the hood, By Joshua Reuben (Israel) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Essential Windows Workflow Foundation (Paperback)
This book describes what is under the hood of WF, elucidating the elegance of its design. It is not a WF cookbook or WF design pattern guidebook. It will tell you the mechanisms by which the activities and runtime services work.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
This book cannot be your 1st WF book, BUT it must be your second one!, By
This review is from: Essential Windows Workflow Foundation (Paperback)
I am writing this review in February 2007, and at this time there are not many options for WF related books.This book goes seriously deep into Windows Workflow Foundation concepts. The book explains important concepts beyond API calls such as Activity Oriented Programming, Resumable Program Statements, Bookmarks and many more. Beside the concepts, the book provides lots of practical solution for real life problems. For example I like the solution that this book suggests for synchronizing the Activity thread and UI threads in WinForm applications (Page 204). I read couple of negative feedbacks for this book and I can guess the reason. This book shouldn't be used to begin and learn Windows Workflow Foundation. However, you will be fascinated by this book if you already know WF well. In essence, there are resources on MSDN that help you to learn the surface of WF programs in a few days. This book is an excellent resource to take your WF... Read more |
Online Sample Chapter
Essential Windows Workflow Foundation: Activity Execution
Table of Contents
About the Authors xiii
Foreword xv
Preface xvii
Acknowledgments xxi
1 Deconstructing WF 1
2 WF Programs 33
3 Activity Execution 53
4 Advanced Activity Execution 111
5 Applications 179
6 Transactions 241
7 Advanced Authoring 259
8 Miscellanea 325
Appendix A Activity Automaton 395
Appendix B Control Flow Patterns 397
Index 435
Downloadable Sample Chapter
Download the Sample Chapter from this book.
Foreword
Download the Foreword from this book.
This book includes free shipping!
This book includes free shipping!
eBook (Watermarked)
$39.99
$31.99
This PDF will be accessible from your Account page after purchase and requires the free Adobe® Reader® software to read it.
The eBook requires no passwords or activation to read. We customize your eBook by discretely watermarking it with your name, making it uniquely yours.
- Request an Instructor or Media review copy.
- Corporate, Academic, and Employee Purchases
- International Buying Options
Get access to thousands of books and training videos about technology, professional development and digital media from more than 40 leading publishers, including Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall, Cisco Press, IBM Press, O'Reilly Media, Wrox, Apress, and many more. If you continue your subscription after your 30-day trial, you can receive 30% off a monthly subscription to the Safari Library for up to 12 months. That's a total savings of $199.
