Building State Machines with Windows Workflow Foundation - February 2008

The Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 introduced new capabilities for visually and declaratively building workflows that can be hosted by managed code. Out of the box, the .NET Framework 3.0 allows developers to build both sequential workflows and state machine workflows. Much has been written about sequential workflows because they closely resemble conventional programming techniques.

State machine workflows, on the other hand, represent a different way of thinking about program logic. When designed and implemented correctly, they are just as valuable as sequential workflows. Furthermore, this style of workflow is a good starting point for building human workflows. Consequently, state machine workflows should be a part of every architect's and developer's skill set.

 

Visibility and Control in a Service Oriented Architecture - May 2007

Services alone do not constitute a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Capabilities must be acquired that provide visibility and control into service development and service execution. Without these capabilities, IT offerings will become fragile as the number of services in the data center grows. This article investigates capabilities that provide visibility and control for the services that make up a SOA.

 

Class to Contract:  Enrich your XML Serialization with Schema Providers in the .NET Framework - June 2006

The Microsoft .NET Framework 1.x provided minimal options for mapping classes to schemas and serializing objects to XML documents, making this sort of mapping quite a challenge. The .NET Framework 2.0 changes all this with Schema providers and the IXmlSerializable interface.

  

Integrating Web Services and COM Components - May 2004

Eliminate organizational dependence on the SOAP Toolkit to expose COM components as Web services. See how to consume Web services written on any platform from legacy environments such as COM components and classic ASP pages.

 

Inside WSDL with .NET Attribution - January 2004

Understanding how a WSDL file describes your Web service is the key to understanding how XML Web services work in general. This article is for .NET developers who want to demystify the WSDL files that Microsoft ASP.NET generates by examining the seven major elements that compose a WSDL file. Techniques for altering the generated WSDL by using the attributes available within the System.Web.Services, System.Web.Services.Protocols, and the System.Xml.Serialization namespaces are also shown.