The Windows Communication Foundation is one of the fundamental key components of what is now called .Net 3.0.  However, this enhancement comes with a price, a steep learning curve. Without this book by Juval Lowy I doubt many programmers would have the proper guidance necessary to make good design decisions. You see that is what Juval Lowy set out to do in his latest book and I think he did a fabulous job! This book is not for the novice programmer it should be warned, but rather the experienced developer who desires to push his or her skills to the next level.

From the very first chapter this book had me hooked. I rarely read technical books all the way through in one sitting however that is exactly what I did with this book. The first chapter starts to explain in plain English what WCF is exactly and from then on the content just gets deeper and deeper.

Now it must be said that I am not an software architect by any means however this book helped to give me more of an architectural viewpoint which could only improve my skill set. The design guidelines and best practices are clearly laid out so that anyone with some programming experience should be able to understand. This is not your average computer text which gives a chunk of code and then explains what it does.  There really is nothing average about this writer and book.

If you believe that anytime in the near future you will need to understand WCF for your work I would highly recommend picking up a copy of this book. It is not for the feint of heart but the journey is well worth it.

Just a quick reminder to those that read my blog that we here in Sarasota will be having another meeting for our small but rapidly growing .Net Developer Group. The details are as follows:

November 2006 Meeting:

Introduction to WCF - Windows Communication Framework - by Jeff Barnes (Microsoft)