The other day I was wondering if there was a XAML aspect of Windows Communication Framework (WCF) in the .NET Framework 3.0. I Googled around to find an answer, but I didn't find anything. In fact, today I see that my question is ranked fifth in Google when searching for "WCF XAML." That's a sign I'm off track, isn't it?
Well, the fact that others aren't blogging about this suggests that I'm looking for the wrong thing. So back to the documentation I went. And this morning after re-reading some MSDN docs I decided to search for "WCF imperative." Sure enough, here's how the Peer Channel Team describes how to use WCF and declare the network type in a XAML-like config file.
I don't quite get why the service contracts can't be imperatively declared too with code behind. Maybe they can be.
Actually, what would help here is more samples--particularly step-by-step samples. (I imagine there are some great samples in the SDK I haven't found :-) ) Where's the simple P2P messaging client sample app? Is there a common set of dialogs or a recommended Vista pattern for inviting/connecting to a mesh? What about managing the connections and cleaning up correctly on exit or network drop? What works through a filewall? What doesn't? And so on.
My questions are probably answered out there somewhere and I'm probably not finding them because I'm not searching on the right words.
At least I'm beginning to find some blogs:
* Peer Channel Team blog.
* "WCF Team Bloggers" appears to aggregate posts although the source code is terribly formatted. Almost embarrassingly so.
* This appears to be an orphaned blog from Peer Channel team member Ravi Rao but it has a great P2P FAQ.
* Nicholas Allen Indigo blog. Lots of info. Best so far. Why didn't I find this first on Google? Hmm.
* Ed Pinto's Blog: Contains the most imperative code discussion I've found so far.
* Yasser Shohoud has some blog posts on channel security.
I'll keep adding to the list as I find 'em.
Some other WCF resources:
WCF Forums -- Probably the most useful place to look for WCF information, although you have to dig.
Kavita Kamani links to some TechEd talks on WCF.
Update: Here's a very good overview of Vista's P2P support.


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