I’ve recently completed work ona project, and have begun the search for my next
project. If you are in the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area, or don’t mind remote
workers, and have need of my expertise in BizTalk, C#, WCF, solutions architecture
or anything else then please feel free to drop me a line at [email protected].
This post is only for Technorati claim. Ignore it.
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This post is only for Technorati claim. Ignore it.
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Maybe it worth to include the send port under this port too.
Having spoken, taught, and consulted about Windows Workflow Foundation for over two
years I’ve run into a number of common misconceptions about WF.
One common misconception is that WF is a write-once run-anywhere technology.
Some people feel like if they write a workflow to run inside of a particular host
(let’s take SharePoint) – that those workflows will be able to run inside of another
host (let’s imagine the next version of BizTalk which has already been announced will
run WF workflows natively as its “Orchestration” engine). The answer is almost
*all* cases is a resounding NO (there are a few small exceptions to this rule but
they are hardly worth mentioning).
In WF a Host has to know how to interact with Workflows, when to create
them, when to use an existing Workflow Instance, and most importantly how to communication
with a running workflow (this is probably the #1 reason why workflows are not portable
among workflow hosts).
So a workflow you build today for SharePoint is intended only to run in SharePoint.
A workflow you build for a custom Host is likely only to run in that custom Host –
it is very very unlikely that you’ll be able to take a workflow built for a custom
Host and run it in the next version of BizTalk (and I have no inside knowledge of
what workflows inside of the next version of BizTalk will look like – although I think
you can probably intuit that from what’s in Orcas in terms of the WCF-WF integration).
This blog post came to me when I was doing a talk about the BizTalk
Extensions for WF a few weeks ago and someone asked about running the workflows
I show inside of another host (like SharePoint or the next version of BizTalk).
This of course was not the first time I’d gotten that question (or questions like
it). But then this idea came to me, because of course when I said “No”
the followup question was “Well – then why would I want to invest in Workflow if my
Workflows I build today won’t likely run in the next version of BizTalk?”.
My answer – and the point of this post – is that the atom of reuse in WF isn’t at
the Workflow/Root level. The atom of reuse in WF is Activities.
Even thought a Workflow built for SharePoint won’t run in another host – if
you build custom activities to encapsulate your programming logic – those Activities
will be able to be reused in other Workflows (and likely other Workflow Hosts as well
– although there are some exceptions – the most glaring of course is Activities that
relate to communication – since that is often the most host specific type of activities).
So any investment you make in WF will pay off in different hosts – both in terms of
general knowledge about how WF works – as well as your investment in custom Activities.
Check out my BizTalk
R2 Training.
Another piece of software has come up and saved my bacon – a couple of days out from
a conference and I would love to Demo RFID. Do I migrate my images to VMWare? (that’s
another story in itself – I’ve heard good + bad)
After researching I came across this……. USB
Anywhere
This guy is GREAT!! Let’s you share USB devices via IP addresses between host
+ remote machines.
(you even get plug and play messages!)
Now all my RFID devices are rocking!!!
I’ve blogged about the Visual Studio extension XPathmania before. It’s a very simple little tool that lets you write and test XPath inside of Visual Studio 2005. No big deal if you already have tools like XMLSpy or XML Notepad but still. I like not having to start another application, opening the XML document I’m working with and so on. Doing stuff inside of Visual Studio just feels right and saves some time anyway.
One of the last episodes of dnrTV hosted Dom Demsak (Don XML), the creator of XPathmania. The show is 30% about XPathmania and 70% about XPath and XPath syntax in general. It’s kind of basic XPath but I think it can be useful for someone who feels they haven’t got full control of the language.
During the show they touch on XML namespaces and XML default namespaces. However they don’t really explain the difference between them and how it effects the document. Something that’s sad as I feel that XML namespaces (and especially default namespaces) is something that most people haven’t fully understood.
Anyway, if you got some spare time watch it or forward it someone you think should watch it. 😉
I have seen some confusion regarding how the Deploy method (including some posts on MSDN forums http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1474&SiteID=1 ) in an event handler is used. I felt a description of the Deploy method’s “role…(read more)
I’ve blogged about the Visual Studio extension XPathmania before. It’s a very simple little tool that lets you write and test XPath inside of Visual Studio 2005. No big deal if you already have tools like XMLSpy or XML Notepad but still. I like not having to start another application, opening the XML document I’m […]
I’ve blogged about the Visual Studio extension XPathmania before. It’s a very simple little tool that lets you write and test XPath inside of Visual Studio 2005. No big deal if you already have tools like XMLSpy or XML Notepad but still. I like not having to start another application, opening the XML document I’m […]