The title is a quote from Don Box while presenting Windows Communication Foundation at Microsofts Professional Developers Conference in LA.  Many years ago I read some of Dons books and was always impressed on how he got Windows.  I had the pleasure of seeing him live at this years PDC and saw what a dynamic speaker he is, in addition to the fact that he probably knows more about Windows then any other person on the planet.

 

Dons SOA comment goes directly to how goofy our industry has become where everyone has latched onto this latest TLA.  I cant go anywhere in the software world without running across SOA.  Like Don says, SOA what!  To quote Don, Message, oh message, the truth is on the wire.  There is nothing else.  So much for SOA

 

I was able to catch Steven Sinofskys presentation on Office 12.  The big news is the investment Microsoft has made in SharePoint Version 3.  I thought SharePoint 2003 was pretty cool as that is how I make my living as an Architect, solving customer problems using SharePoint.  However, version 3 is incredible!  It is the center piece of Microsofts Enterprise Content Management (ECM) strategy for the Information Worker.  It represents the 5 pillars of connected systems, Interaction (using Atlas), Messaging and Services (using Windows Communication Foundation), Workflow (using Windows Workflow Foundation), Identity and Access (using InfoCard and AD), and Data (using SQL 2005).  Whats really surprising to me is that at this years PDC, nothing on ASP.NET web application development.  It looks like that SharePoint is the web application of choice.

 

Speaking of Workflow, I got to see Windows Workflow Foundation in detail.  Essentially it is a framework (i.e. a set of APIs) that allows you to embed workflow in your custom developed applications.  Since it is part of the Windows platform, it is available for anyone to use and has built in support in Office 12 and the new version of FrontPage.

 

One really cool feature of WWF is to be able to draw a workflow as a state diagram.  State diagrams are different than sequential workflows as they are more ad hoc in nature and makes a perfect match for many human business processes that are also ad hoc where workflow steps are skipped or even better, dynamic in nature.  Dynamic update meaning we now have the ability to change the workflow logic while the workflow is running.  This is pretty amazing and matches much closer to the real world then a static sequential workflow. This also means that you do not have to recompile.  Cool!

 

Now I have been using workflow (a.k.a. orchestration) in BizTalk 2004 for some time and wondered how the two technologies work together.  As I understand it, using WWF is great for workflow inside applications and BizTalk is great for using workflow across applications.  Makes sense, but I am sure we will see a version of BizTalk that will use WWF in the future.

 

I also wondered how BizTalk 2006 (BTS) will work with Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).  As explained to me, WCF is a great framework for building connected systems (Microsofts term for SOA), but has no facility for orchestration.  In other words, point to point communications.  Adding BTS works in concert with WCF for additional business process and integration server capabilities which adds another layer of abstraction in distributed systems design.  Again makes sense, but I am sure there are other plans for BizTalk in the future which I will get to hear about tomorrow.

 

Also tomorrow, I will get to see and hear a session on Visual Studio Team System for Software Architects and Future Directions in Modeling Tools.  I am quite excited by this as I believe this is another step in the industrialization of software, which is what my blog is all about.  Till tomorrow.