WCF for the totally clueless

Question

I've been hearing about WCF for a couple of years now, and I still don't get it. I understand that it's supposed to be a replacement for web services, remoting, MSMQ, and a few other things.

The trouble is, every tutorial I find assumes that I've done one of those things, and it tends to follow the line of "Here are the differences; you know the rest." But I don't know the rest!

So: Do you know of any tutorial articles, books, etc. that assume that the reader knows C# or VB .NET, but nothing about web services, MSMQ, remoting, and all those other technologies that WCF replaces?

Answer 1

Here are some resources from MSDN that I do not think that require any prior knowledge:

• Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Screencasts
• MSDN Webcast: Windows Communication Foundation Top to Bottom (Part 01 of 15): Overview (Level 100)
• Windows Communication Foundation Code Samples
• Learning Resources for Windows Communication Foundation - see Virtual Labs

Answer 2

I thought the MSDN Getting Started Tutorial wasn't bad. It walks you through step by step without many assumptions. It also contains references to detailed topics when you're ready to dig deeper.

Answer 3

"Learning WCF" by Michele Leroux Bustamante is an excellent book as well. It contains a ton of step-by-step tutorials for just about every scenario that one can think of with WCF.

From what I've seen WCF has a pretty steep learning curve up until you just "get it" - there'll be a moment of epiphany where you just go, "OH YEAH!!" It's not as complicated as it looks at first blush.

Seriously though, take a look at this book. The version that I have focuses on VS 2005 implementation which is a bit different from what you'll find in VS 2008. Maybe there's a new edition, but either way it's not impossible to follow.

Keep at it and you'll get it.

Answer 4

The absolute best book out there is Essential Windows Communication Foundation 3.5.

Here's a basic article about how web services differ conceptually from standard procedural code:

http://www.iserviceoriented.com/blog/post/Introduction+to+Service+Oriented+Architecture.aspx

Answer 5

I'd recommend "Programming WCF Services" by Juval Löwy. Especially if you want to grow your service big, this book is a real help!

Answer 6

If you want to know the rest, particularly the differences between things like MSMQ and Web Services, I'd thoroughly recommend you read the first few chapters of the book "Enterprise Integration Patterns". Perhaps look at this site and read about the various integration styles.

Answer 7

Tutorials and webcasts and books are great, but the only way I was really able to synthesize it all was to start making things. Build a couple projects, play with the endpoint configurations, introduce some deliberate faults to see how it works.

THEN after you've done some playing around, go back and (re)read Juval Lowy's book, and you'll get a lot out of it.