Foundations of WF: an Introduction to Windows Workflow Foundation

Author: Brian Myers
Publisher: APress
ISBN: 1590597184
Retail Price: $34.99 US, (eBook $17.50 US)
Publication Date: October 2006
Softcover: 264 pages
Online information: Table of Contents, Sample chapter, Source code
URL: http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=10172

In my quest to find a Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) book that would serve as an introduction for typical developer, I found “Foundations of WF: an Introduction to Windows Workflow Foundation” published at APress. Like its title imply, this is an introduction to WF targeted at C# or VB developers wanting to learn how to develop applications using WF and its designers. The reader will learn what is a workflow, the difference between sequential and state machine workflows, the various activities available out of the box, how to create a custom activity, how to expose a workflow as a Web service, and even a little peek at workflows in Office 2007.

Sounds good? Of course however I should point out a few problems with this book. I’ve been doing book reviews for a few years now and I must say that this book is probably the worst written book that I’ve reviewed so far. It’s that bad. Throughout the book, you’ll find step-by-step examples however the steps are written in paragraphs instead of bullets making hard to follow them. The author provides code examples in C# and VB however, instead of grouping the examples together, he repeats the same section with the same comments for both languages. On top of that you’ll find useful sentences like this one throughout the book: “Although the language is different, this class uses the same namespaces and classes as the VB .NET code did”.

I can’t believe that APress published this book in this state. Not that the content is wrong, just that it looks like a first draft and rushed to press. So be warned!