Programming WCF Services, 2nd Edition

Preface

In August 2001 I first learned the details of a Microsoft effort to rewrite COM+ using managed code. Nothing much happened after that. Then, during a C# 2.0 Strategic Design Review in July 2002, the remoting program manager outlined in broad strokes plans to rework remoting into something that developers should actually use. At the same time, Microsoft was also working on incorporating the new security specs for web services into the ASMX stack and actively working with others on drafting a score of additional web services specs.

In July 2003 I was given access to a new transactional infrastructure that improved on the deficiencies in transactional .NET programming. At the time, there was no cohesive programming model that unified these distinct technologies. Toward the end of 2003 I was privileged to be invited to join a small team of outside industry experts and to participate in the strategic design review of a new development platform code-named Indigo. Some of the smartest and nicest people I know were part of that team. Over the next two to three years, Indigo went through some three generations of programming models. The current declarative, endpoint-driven object model debuted in early 2005, was stabilized by August of that year, and was named the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).

It is difficult to get a consistent answer from different people on what WCF is. To the web service developer, it is the ultimate interoperability solution, an implementation of a long list of industry standards. To the distributed application developer, it is the easiest way of making remote calls and even queued calls. To the system developer, it is the next generation of productivity-oriented features, such as transactions and hosting, that provide off-the-shelf plumbing for applications. To the application developer, it is a declarative programming model for structuring applications. And to the architect, it is how one can finally build service-oriented applications. WCF is in actuality all of those, simply because it was designed that way—to be the unified next generation of Microsoft's disparate technologies.

To me, WCF is the next development platform, which to a large extent subsumes raw .NET programming. All .NET developers should use WCF, regardless of their application types, sizes, or industry domains. WCF is a fundamental technology that provides an easy and clean way to generate services and applications in compliance with what I regard as sound design principles. WCF is engineered from the ground up to simplify application development and deployment, and to lower the overall cost of ownership. WCF services are used to build service-oriented applications, from standalone desktop applications to web-based applications and services to high-end Enterprise applications.