endpoint.tv - WCF and WF 4.0 First Look with Scott Golightly

The Discussion

• 

  Very interesting video. The highlights for me were
  (1) the advantages declarative workflows have over opaque code in the light of Oslo and models in general.
  (2) Thinking of the Oslo repository not only as a 'runtime' store of models that are executable but also as a store of models in general that can be picked up and assembled into a composite application
  (3) Thinking of WF as a declarative 'glue' that can still play nicely with other business objects
  (4) the discussions on some ways of looking at Cloud computing and where it can fit in.
  
  Nice work guys...

  - Benjy

• 

  You are right... by building WF workflows business processes can be built outside of a LOB and integrated once completed. This way the focus is primarily targeted on the process.

• 

  I am quite excited with the prospects Oslo and "M" is going to bring about in WF 4.0. Declaring a domain model on language constructs which can be treated as activities underneath is quite exciting. This is going to bring text based workflows to forefront something which was very challenging in WF 3.0.
  
  The other thing I am equally excited about is the new activity designer on WPF. People who have tried tweaking activity designer on .NET 3.0 using GDI+ will understand the pain they had to go through to make just simple things work. 
  
  Well Done!!!

• 

  If you haven't already done so, Kenny Wolf shows off writing a custom WF 4.0 activity using "M" in his WF 4.0: A First Look session at PDC (from about 53 minute mark to about 55 minute mark).
  
  It's great to hear it talked about, but amazing to see in action.