Reviews for Pro WCF: Practical Microsoft SOA Implementation

1. Poorly written and edited, waffly and sparse in equal measure.

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, October 12th, 2009

   I borrowed our office copy of this book and found it very frustrating. The writing style is too wrody and confusing. It badly needed an editor to make it terser and more readable. You get the impression that the page count was considered more important for sales than the quality of the book.
   
   The first section of the book is a re-capping (much padded with waffle) of the concept of service orientated architecture, with a few new WCF concepts hidden amongst the noise. The early technical sections of the book are only a little better, but by then I was losing heart and quickly switched to online tutorials for my first proof of concept application, and never came back to the book.
   

2. Good value for money!

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, April 12st, 2009

   Very good value for money!
   Gives a detailed description of WCF in such a strightforward way you need not being a Web services experts to understand!
   A good recommendation!

3. Lacking

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2009

   I have to agree with the more negative reviews of this book. The book rambles in places and gives shallow how to's in the places where you want the most detail, i.e. transactions, queuing and routing. I laboured all the way through the book and feel i've gleamed only the basics, i will now look to the books from Orielly to give me what i wanted.

4. Where is the PRO part?

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, March 12th, 2009

   The name of the book, "Pro WCF", is bit misleading as it fails to provide information of many central matters of WCF..

5. Patchy, uninspiring and shallow

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, September 12th, 2008

   When I decided to look for WCF books, I looked at amazon.com site and started looking for a 5 star book. Back then (late 2007) this had a few 5 star ratings and I was convinced that it is the book I will read.
   
   When finally after a few months got the time to sit down and read it, my enthusiasm gradually vanished as I read more and more of the book. The first few chapters are long but generally padded and just to fill in for an SOA topic.
   
   The book does not cover the concepts and technical details of WCF for a senior developer or architect. The book is patchy and does not cover all the subjects. Details on some topics such as transaction is almost limited to configuration and simple how-to rather than details and pitfalls.
   
   Not inspiring. Not happy with the purchase and I am not recommending this book.