Microsoft Silverlight Books

Oh... Now I get it.

I have been trying to get my arms around WCF for some time and recently I got a copy of "Learning WCF" by Michelle Leroux Bustamante. This "second edition" book is almost 2 years old but I was very surprised to find the content extraordinarily useful. The very first chapter, Michelle comes right out of the gate with a unique approach and asks the reader to build a service application from scratch. That's right, no template just raw code. This fundamental example showed me that this author knows her material. The book continues at just the right pace introducing the reader to more and more complexity. There is a ton of research and details presented here. With VS2010 there have been some improvements in WCF templates and new WCF features were added to the 4.0 Framework. Maybe we can encourage Michelle to release another updated edition and include examples in both VB and C#.

All in all this book is a great resource of information and I highly recommend it for both the novice and the expert.


Joe Waldin
04 August, 2010

You want to learn WCF, buy this book!

I don't need to give you a ton of reasons why you should get this book. One reason is good enough. If you want to learn WCF get this book and you'll be up and running in a few hours. She sure knows how to explain things.
..Ben

B. Hayat
10 April, 2010

Don' waste your money on this book

I used this book as part of a study group to learn WCF. I was encouraged by the rave reviews this book received. However, the first time I read this book, I found it to utterly incomprehensible. The writing makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Not only that but I took the time to download the labs from the book. They wouldn't even compile! DONT WASTE your money on this book. It's by far the worst book that O'Rielly has ever put out. And, I've almost always impressed with O'Rielly titles. You usually can't go wrong with them.

M. Hansen
22 February, 2010

Excellent Book for Beginners

This is an excellent book for beginners. I first bought Lowy's book based on the reviews but it is for the advanced programmers who are already aware of WCF concepts. I finished Michele's book quickly and now will read Lowy's book.

Madhusudan T. Kontham
12 February, 2010

Be Sure To Get The Correct Printing

There were two printings of the first edition. The 2nd printing has all the labs and examples in VS2008. The first printing uses VS2005. I ordered this book from Amazon well after the 2nd printing was out (I ordered the book in late April 2009...the 2nd printing was in Aug 2008)...BUT...Amazon still sent me the first printing which is less than helpful given that our office has moved to VS2008.

You can get an update of Chapter 1 from the author's blog site. But you will not be able to see updates to the remainder of the book. You should insist that Amazon tell you which print version you're getting before having this book shipped.

Larry W. Clement
24 November, 2009

best book for WCF

this has to be one of the best books for WCF out-there. starts from introductions and goes in-depth in topics.

Ram K. Gandhapuneni
30 October, 2009

.NET Developer Group Coban

A mi me gusto el libro porque trata de como llevar comunicaciones seguras sin problemas. Es muy amplio y los temas se tratan de forma sencilla y clara para que los que estamos aprendiendo lo podamos absorver eficientemente.

By: Disandro Xol Bac

Jose Rolando Guay Paz
19 July, 2009

As the name says, with it you will be learning WCF

I'm just finishing chapter 1. This books seems great. It teaches you WCF from the basics. Going over stuff, giving examples, tips etc'.
I think its a good book for those who are new to WCF and want to learn WCF.


Alon
09 July, 2009

A great place to start

The examples and online access make this a nice guide to WCF. Even better is the author responded to my question via email!

Hank T. Cat
04 June, 2009

A must have WCF book

As I am working through the WCF learning process, I have been exposed to a number of books and resources, and I wanted to let you know I think your work has been the most helpful to me.

It is clear you took great pains to write a book with specific coding exercises matching concepts as progress. This is in contrast with every other WCF book that does have code, but those examples don't tie back in a basic way. The problem, at least for me, is when I am learning something, is how do I practically apply it. The other books give you code examples, but you have to figure out how to put it all together on your own, and a big part of WCF is not only specific islands of code, but how they all talk to each other.

So, thank you very much for your efforts I am finding them very helpful to me.


M. Malter
06 May, 2009

Excellent labs - confusing writing style

This book had the best labs of any technical book I have read/used. Usually labs, especially the MS Series, are extremely simple and don't even scratch the surface of the topics. The labs in this book are multi-step, with explanations of each step and what the code does. Then the author explains even further what the labs do. I think I got a pretty good hands-on experience with this book.

This book could use some improvement in writing style, or just plain writing composition. When the author was discussing the labs the writing was usually pretty good and clear on point. However, when not talking about the labs, the writing was very hard to follow. The difficulty was not due to technical content, but much more to do with poor sentence and paragraph composition. At times, it reminded me of students' writing term papers for their professor. The writing seemed more focused on expressing what the person knew, rather than presenting the information in a way that could be learned. I got the first edition of this book, perhaps th second or subsequent editions have rewritten parts that were poorly written.

In summary, even with the negative of the confusing writing style in some areas, this book is well worth getting for the superb labs and explanation of the labs.

A. Solorzano
16 April, 2009

Solid

A good, solid introduction to WCF. However, the security chapter was very poor - hence the 4, rather than 5 stars.

Sean Fitzgerald
31 March, 2009

A Terrible Book

Don't buy this book if you are hoping to learn WCF. The examples don't work as specified in the text. It is very, very frustrating!! This is a terrible problem for a book that has a primary purpose of teaching a technology. There must be a better book out there, or at least one where the examples have actually been tested.

This is surprising because O'Reilly usually publishes very high quality material.

S. Korow
10 March, 2009

Excellent Way To Learn WCF

The book's style is quite helpful in learning WCF. First a brief discussion of a concept, then a quick lab to put the concept into practice, and then more a detailed discussion about that concept. Sometimes I wanted more detailed discussion before the lab or during the lab, but overall I was quite impressed with the quality of the entire book.

Mark Phillips
26 February, 2009

Very good hands-on experience

I am an entry level .NET programmer with 5 years of Assembly language and 12 years of VB programming experience. I do have the Juval Lowy's Programming WCF which was rated the best in our development team but learning the subject from scratch was a daunting effort. Michele's Learning WCF book made a world of difference with all the hands-on and explanations at the appropriate time. The book not only explains the topic but also makes you feel it. To top it all, during my learning struggles, I could get help from the author herself. I certainly recommend this book for those who wants to really understand "what exactly is WCF?"

Janaka
17 February, 2009

Great book to learn WCF!

This book suprised and delighted me with its depth and ability to teach WCF concepts in an easy to understand manner. The additional code samples referred to throughout the book further demonstrate the concepts being discussed. This book will make a good reference when needing to refresh your understanind the "why" in addition to the "how" when working on a WCF code.

Kerry Jenkins
20 January, 2009

Learning WCF: A Hands-on Guide by Michele Bustamante

First of all, the book is an excellent source for learning WCF, just like the book's title. I recently started a project that has to use WCF with VS 2008. There are a few WCF books out there, but they all are for VS 2005. This book has no exception. WCF in VS 2005 and VS 2008 are quite different. Michele updated all the labs source code to VS2008. When I ran into some problems, I sent some messages to Michele for helps. She replayed back very quickly and helped me to solve my problems. In the past, I have tried to send e-mail to authors of some books; most of them have never returned anything back to me. Michele is awesome and cares about the readers. Highly recommend for those who are learning WCF.

f117b2
04 January, 2009

Excellent book

I have read 'Learning WCF' cover to cover - and it is excellent. If a dog-eared and coffee-stained book is the mark of a handy reference then 'Learning WCF' is such a reference.

I have studied the labs and sample solutions (and had no trouble downloading and building them) and keep going back to these when flaws in my own WCF project appear.

I have also watched Michelle's video series (all 15 of them) which augmented my basic but workable understanding of WCF.

I can now read Juval's book and make progress because I have my basics in.

Thanks Michelle.


Dean J. Detheridge
04 December, 2008

To old to be of any use

If you're running VS 2005 with .Net Framework 3.0, this might be a good learning tool. However, the word 'learning' may be a stretch in this case. I would expect additional content related to issues faced while trying the examples. There are none. If you can't get things to work while walking through the examples, you're on your own. In some cases, this might not be such a bad thing, but this book uses the first example and builds on it with every other example, continually adding more development work. For example, if you get stuck on Lab three, you won't be able to work on Lab four, five, six...

I cannot recommend this book if you're beyond VS 2005 and Framework 3.0

Developer
25 November, 2008

Don't waster your time on this book

I totally agree with (principal developer)

I found this book with great reviews!!!! but when I read it. It is a mess.

1- The writer uses New terms all the time that you have never heard of. And she will never define them properly. Even jumping back and forth all the time will not help.
2- You can't grab your book and read it somewhere else: Apparently she relies a lot on the samples shipped with the book. If you try to read the book without a computer with the samples on it, you will never learn!!!

I really found reading random articles (written by hobbyists) on the internet is better than this book.

Those two points are enough to tell you to find another book for yourself to read. Don't waste your time.


Mohamed S. El Ashi
21 November, 2008

Minor flaw hinders what could have been a great book.

Pro - Easy to understand and having a hands-on approach is good. Nice slow pace for beginners.

Con - (i) I agree with the previous reader here that the organization of the book could be better. I also don't like to type in anything without knowing the reason why I type it. (ii) The organization of the source code is confusing. For example, the CompletedLabs in Chapter 1, there is a HelloIndigo_Part1 folder, a HelloIndigo_Part2 folder and a HelloIndigo_Part3 folder - I honestly could not tell which folder corresponds to which lab of the book.



Pat Choi
19 November, 2008

My first and last book by this publisher

I was looking for a good book on WCF and saw that this book received great reviews. I started out with their other book "Programming WCF Services" and thought maybe this one would be better to start out with. I am now returning both of them and will try either the Pro WCF: Practical Microsoft SOA Implementation (Pro) book by APRESS or the Professional WCF Programming: .NET Development with the Windows Communication Foundation (Programmer to Programmer) book.

I personally don't like the way this book is organized. You walk through several examples in the first chapter using terms and technologies that you haven't learned about yet - I found myself jumping around in the book to try to figure out what I just typed into Visual Studio and why I typed it. I like to learn a little bit about the concepts before I start getting into the examples.

Principal Developer
09 October, 2008

Going straight to the WCF technical matter.

I had to cross through several WCF books before finding the right one for me. This book has very easy learning approach - going straight to the technical WCF matter. In a good intro chapter, explaining everything about creating and configuring WCF servers and clients the book defines serialization, hosting, bindings, behaviors and other specific WCF basis. All these meanings are discussed deeper in consecutive chapters.

Angel Komarov
31 August, 2008

superlative

I purchased this and Lowy's book on WCF. Of the two, I'd say this is the one that will make WCF real to blue collar developers. More technical books need to be written this way. The author does an outstanding job of describing the pieces and parts of WCF from a functional standpoint before leading the reader through simple step-by-step exercises. These do a solid job of reinforcing the theory. I normally blow off working through sample code in technical works, but with WCF, it really helps to explore some of the nuances to things like serialization, callbacks and security. These are best appreciated by doing hands-on walkthroughs and fortunately, the author has provided very good examples in the companion download.

Lowy's book is good for different reasons, but I feel far more conversant in the WCF area having read and re-read Bustamente's book. Lowy's is a nice companion and it goes deep into stuff that, unless your current project really needs it, you'll brain dump in two weeks. Quote Lowy at swank cocktail parties with the hoi poloi, but use this book when you want to gain a solid understanding of this thing we call WCF.

Bustamente writes clearly and to the point. Git r' done types like me who are interested in exploring the functional without getting lost in the minutiae will appreciate Learning WCF.

This book is not about SOA although the author does touch on some basic premises governing what it does for the enterprise. Unlike Lowy, there weren't any real groaners about how SOA is going to replace OO and end world poverty. OO maybe got 30% penetration among software developers in formal polls. (As an informal measure, go into any MS shop and check out how many OO diagrams are created by devs in their work and you'll see what I mean. Most MS shops won't even spend money on third party modeling tools.) SOA isn't going to do any better and it addresses a different set of problems than does OO. Bustamente gives developers a solid grounding in appreciating what WCF can do while leaving all the fluff about "paradigm shifts" and what-not for others.

Ian Wright
10 June, 2008

Excellent!

I am very happy with this book: it's easy to read, the structure is very intuitive and logical, and everything you need to know is covered. If you're just starting with WCF and you're looking for an excellent resource on the subject, look no further.

Lazar Lashev
01 March, 2008

Gets you started quickly. Clear and comprehensive.

This is a very good book to get started quickly with WCF. Specially useful are the setup instructions and the section on hosting, which can be big gotchas with new technologies like this one. The section on security is a nice touch.

Here is the table of contents in case you are wondering:

Chapter 1. Hello Indigo
Section 1.1. Service Oriented Architecture
Section 1.2. WCF Services
Section 1.3. Fundamental WCF Concepts
Section 1.4. Creating a New Service from Scratch
Section 1.5. Generating a Service and Client Proxy
Section 1.6. Hosting a Service in IIS
Section 1.7. Exposing Multiple Service Endpoints
Section 1.8. Summary
Chapter 2. Contracts
Section 2.1. Messaging Protocols
Section 2.2. Service Description
Section 2.3. WCF Contracts and Serialization
Section 2.4. Service Contracts
Section 2.5. Data Contracts
Section 2.6. Message Contracts
Section 2.7. Approaches to Serialization
Section 2.8. The Message Type
Section 2.9. Summary
Chapter 3. Bindings
Section 3.1. How Bindings Work
Section 3.2. Web Service Bindings
Section 3.3. Connection-Oriented Bindings
Section 3.4. One-Way and Duplex Communication
Section 3.5. Large Message Transfers
Section 3.6. Custom Bindings
Section 3.7. Summary
Chapter 4. Hosting
Section 4.1. Hosting Features
Section 4.2. ServiceHost
Section 4.3. Self-Hosting
Section 4.4. Hosting on the UI Thread
Section 4.5. Hosting in a Windows Service
Section 4.6. Hosting in IIS 6.0
Section 4.7. IIS 7.0 and Windows Activation Service
Section 4.8. Choosing the Right Hosting Environment
Section 4.9. Summary
Chapter 5. Instancing and Concurrency
Section 5.1. OperationContext
Section 5.2. Instancing
Section 5.3. Concurrency
Section 5.4. Instance Throttling
Section 5.5. Load Balancing and Failover
Section 5.6. Summary
Chapter 6. Reliability
Section 6.1. Reliable Sessions
Section 6.2. Transactions
Section 6.3. Queued Calls
Section 6.4. Summary
Chapter 7. Security
Section 7.1. WCF Security Overview
Section 7.2. Securing Intranet Services
Section 7.3. Securing Internet Services
Section 7.4. Working with Certificates
Section 7.5. Building a Claims-Based Security Model
Section 7.6. Exploring Federated Security
Section 7.7. Summary
Chapter 8. Exceptions and Faults
Section 8.1. SOAP Faults
Section 8.2. WCF Exception Handling
Section 8.3. Exceptions and Debugging
Section 8.4. Fault Contracts
Section 8.5. IErrorHandler
Section 8.6. Summary
Appendix A. Setup Instructions
Section A.1. Database Setup
Section A.2. ASP.NET Provider Model Setup
Section A.3. Certificate Setup
Section A.4. IIS Application Directories
Appendix B. ASP.NET Meets CardSpace
Section B.1. Information Cards and CardSpace: A Brief Tour
Section B.2. Identity Metasystem Participants and Browser Flow
Section B.3. Let's Log In with CardSpace!
Section B.4. Processing the Token
Section B.5. Associating Cards with User Accounts
Section B.6. Creating a Dual Purpose Login Page
Section B.7. Conclusion



Marcelo Lombardi
26 February, 2008

Learning WCF

Great tutorials and help on author's website. Definately a book for someone who needs to start from the beginning!

28 January, 2008

This should be the first WCF book you get

You may want to acquire various other WCF books for depth, but if you're just getting started with WCF, this is the book you want. There isn't another book out there that compares to it. It's cleanly written and nicely balances conceptual material on service orientation with the practicalities of Windows Communication Foundation.

Many other books on WCF take the form of a "brain dump" on WCF features, or get bogged down in conceptual discussion of Service Oriented Architecture. Instead, Ms. Bustamante has a very clear, logical path from simple WCF features to more complex. You won't be overwhelmed early, but you will eventually get to most of the advanced features you'll likely need. Other books, such as Juval Lowy's Programming WCF Services (Programming), can pick up at that point for the really advanced topics.

Many of the chapters contain step-by-step labs, and you can get working end results from the author's web site. They start easy and build nicely through more complex concepts.

The sample code in the book is in C#, but if you happen to be a Visual Basic developer (as I am), you're not left out. Many of the labs and samples are also available in VB on the author's web site.

The book was unfortunately published too early to include definite coverage of the Visual Studio 2008 features for automatically generating some of the code you need to use WCF. Those capabilities are in the Visual Studio 2008 beta now and will be released in the next few months. Some of the labs could have been simplified by using those Visual Studio features. But, on the positive side, working through the labs in more detail will give you a more in-depth understanding of the subject and enable you to use the Visual Studio features more effectively.

Billy Hollis
14 November, 2007

Absolutely awesome

This is an absolutely awesome book for those new to WCF, experienced in WCF development and looking at tuning their skills, or trainers looking for quality material for their students (I used this book to prep for the Instructor Led Lab session I delivered at Tech.Ed Australia 2007 and I know the two attendees I gave copies too were also extremely impressed with its content).
Every topic discussed in this book is reinforced with hands-on-labs and code examples in both VB.NET and C# and Michele has also delivered a 15 part series titled "Windows Communication Foundation Top to Bottom" based on the book (see my blog at [...] for a detailed review of each presentation).
If you're serious about WCF, this is the book to get.

Jeffrey Wharton
07 September, 2007

Greatest

This is the best book in WCF. The labs are extremely helpful. Concepts are clearly explained. "That Indigo Girl" did an excellent job on this one.

J. Gu
04 September, 2007

Master WCF with this book

A very thorough treatment of WCF backed by hands-on labs. The labs are simple yet drive the concepts home. And once you've done a lab you can easily apply the lesson in your professional project.

Chapters 1 -5 and 8 are the most useful to my situation, although I would have liked chapter 8 (on Exceptions and Faults) to be a tad deeper on fault handling, especially regarding the catching of FaultException at the client side.

That said, off the bat I was professionally operational as soon as I had digested chapter 1. Chapter 2 explained Contracts, the agreement between services and clients. That chapter clarifies how server and client sides cooperate. Chapter 3 explains Bindings and allows you to make wise choices regarding which channel etc... will best serve your need. Chapter 4 explains Hosting. It was good to get simple but very helpful tips like the recommendation to have a console host in the project even though the main production hosting will be say, IIS or a Windows Service host. The console host is so invaluable during debugging sessions where I do not have to constantly stop and start a Windows service host. Chapter 5 adds more to hosting by explaining instancing and when the need for concurrency arises.


K. LEW
12 July, 2007

A 'must buy' for WCF

I have trawled round quite few books, articles, samples etc which all promised instant knowledge of WCF. Fortunately I came across Michele's book before I gave up in despair. I found the style just refreshing; it talked you through the concepts in bite-sized chunks and never tried to swamp you in technology.
Not just that, but Hands-On-Labs as well; yes, labs that work out of the box and demonstrate the principal at issue. Not just labs but solutions too that actually work. It does exactly what it says on the tin.
I've found this "tell it how it is and provide working samples" to be a real novelty in the WCF space.
If you want to get WCF-competent, then get this book. If you want to trash around in the dark for a few more weeks, then there's plenty of others I could suggest.

P. D. Besly
18 June, 2007