January 2006 - Posts
I've just started looking into Microsoft's new workflow framework, Windows Workflow Foundation, which will form part of the WinFX suite, and I am blown away. A vareity of Workflow tools and servers exist already, but this is the most exciting I've seen. There are a number of fantastic features that will make it a compelling replacement for existing workflow products in an enterprise context, but I think it has some features that are going to significantly impact the work that we do in software development! Foremost among these is the fact that it has been built as a framework, rather than a server product, which means it is embedded right into windows, and into the desktop versions as well...We can also embed workflows directly into our applications.
As the market for activities grows, this space is going to get very, very exciting!
Microsoft today released Go Live licences for these two key WinFX technologies! This is fantastic news, because it means that they are _very_ close to release and that M.S. is comfortable enough with them to do this.
For more info check out:
this article
Ami Vora's post
The Windows Communication Foundation site
The Windows WorkFlow Foundation site
On a related note, it coincides with the release of a January CTP.
[This post is a copy of the one on the site - please post replies there if you have any]
I'm planning to make 2006 a great year for saArch, and part of this is sitting down with members for short one-on-one's discussing some ideas and opportunities. The site and forums are a great place to do this, and I'll be starting some more threads up soon (see the schedule of events thread here), but if anyone would like to take part in this individual sessions let me know and we can arrange something. Otherwise, start your own thread and lets all get discussing!
[This post is a copy of the one on the site - please post replies there if you have any. Please note these are the Cape Town events]
I've just been kicking around some ideas for talks for this year to get us rolling, and so far I've come up with a couple of ideas for talks and dates. What do you guys think of the topics below? Let's do some yay's and nay's, and please put down your ideas for other topics you'd like to see. Its _very_ flexible at this point, like I said - just to get us rolling.
Also, right now they're still up for the last Thursday of the month. How does this suit everyone? I had one suggestion recently for Sunday mornings - should we try this out?
Also, if anyone is interested in speaking that would be great too - let me know. For some of the topics we can even make a plan to get hold of content, so you would just need to actually present them.
-H
Model Driver Architecture (MDA) - Jul 27
Visual Studio Team System (VSTS)
Software Factories - Apr 26
WinFX Series – WinCF (“Indigo”) -Feb 23
WinFX Series – WinWF - Mar 30 / (AO)
WinFX Series – WinPF (“Avalon”) -Jun 29
WinFX Series – WinFS - Aug 31
Domain Specific Languages - May 25
Office 12 - Sep 28
Windows Vista - Oct 26
LINQ - Nov 30
I thought I was going mad, looking for the DataContract and related attributes in my WCF travels. The other major WCF attributes are found in the System.ServiceModel namespace and assembly, but this one was not. I'm not using an IDE, so I was navigating around with Reflector trying to find it in every namespace and assembly that seemed WCF related, but getting nowhere.
However, it always helps to have rockstars on your contact list :-). Willy-Peter was quickly able to point me in the right direction - it's in System.Runtime.Serialization! In retrospect, this kind of makes sense, but only if its going to be used outside of a WCF context...
Thanks Willy!
Urmm, so I've read about using the marvellous DataContract attribute to define the objects that you'll be passing in and out of your service, but when I try to use them they're not there! I was receiving compilation errors, so I fired up Reflector, and true enough the class does not exist in the system.ServiceModel namespace, or anywhere in the assembly?!? I can find ServiceContract, OperationContract, and the Message ones, but not the DataContract.
Perhaps its just a funny with the November CTP. I'm trying to get my hands on the December drop, but once again its a lovely 1 gb. Aaarrgg.
I just finished putting together my first tutorial on Windows Communication Foundation (Indigo). For those who are interested in can be found
here. It's a very simple walkthrough of creating a Hello World web service using WCF, but hopefully it will be the first of many that will build upon one another as I learn and explore the space more.
I finally managed to get hold of the WinFX SDK beta 2! The more I hear, see, and read about Vista and its plethora of related technologies, the more I begin to understand why the SDK is almost a gigabyte in size. There are a tremendous amount of new technologies in the package and I think is going to take us a long time to get to grips with many of them all at once. Hopefully I get to look at a bunch of them in time, but right now I’m having a look at Windows Communication Foundation, aka “Indigo”.
[Update: This post has now been moved under the Articles section, and it can can be found here. My apologies for any frustration caused, I'm only working to make things better around here :-)]