Windows Workflow - Use on eCommerce Site?

Question

I've been doing some tutorials, and a lot of reading on Windows Workflow recently, and was just wondering if it would be practical to use it in an eCommerce website - at the check out for example...?

Customer Checks basket customer enters delivery information customer checks order customer pays done

or am i barking up the wrong tree?

Answer 1

Yes, that would be a practical use.

However, Microsofts Commerce Server uses a pipeline technology.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd451186.aspx

Answer 2

Rob Conery did something similar in one of his ASP.NET MVC Storefront tutorials.

Is it possible, absolutely.

Would you actually want to use WF to do this sort of thing. I wouldn't advise any of my clients to do this for two reasons:

1. In most cases the cost of instantiating and loading WF is overkill for the task being accomplished. A simple state machine implementation will suffice in most cases.
2. The current version of WF is end-of-lifetime. Microsoft has already announced that there will be significant breaking changes in the next release of WF. I feel like WF is at the wrong end of the $$$ versus value added equation at this point.