Matt W's Windows Workflow Place : Oslo

Which WF/WCF Talks Should You Attend at PDC?

mwinkle — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:19:10 GMT

Just got the email the other day that PDC is less than 4 weeks away, and it got me thinking a bit about how I would think about these sessions as an attendee. Searching on the PDC site will yield 8 talks tagged with WF. Here's how I break some of these these down, the first few are about using WF, and the last 3 are about WF itself:

Hosting Workflows and Services

Dan Eshner

Hear about extensions being made to Windows Server to provide a feature-rich middle-tier execution and deployment environment for Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) applications. Learn about the architecture of this new extension, how it works, how to take advantage of it, and the features it provides that simplify deployment, management, and troubleshooting of workflows and services.

This talk is all about the host we're building for WF and WCF, which I mentioned earlier, we're calling "Dublin". If you're familiar with either technology, and have built a host of your own, this will be interesting both from the perspective of what is coming, as well as how we are thinking about solving some of the hosting problems.

A Lap around "Oslo"

Presenters: Douglas Purdy, Vijaye Raji

"Oslo" is the family of new technologies that enable data-driven development and execution of services and applications. Come and learn how to capture all aspects of an application schematized in the "Oslo" repository and use "Oslo" directly to drive the execution of deployed applications.

Building declarative or data driven apps is a "thing" in the Oslo world. This talk will give the big picture of all of the various pieces of Oslo, and how existing declarative technologies, like WF and WCF fit into it. Note, this talk is not primarily about WF or WCF, rather it is about Oslo, which you can read about in more detail here and here.

What about all of the things we are doing to WCF and WF in .NET 4? That's the remaining three talks:

Windows Workflow Foundation 4.0: A First Look

Presenter: Kenny Wolf

Programs coordinate work. The code for coordination and state management often obscures a program's purpose. Learn how programming with Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) 4.0 provides clarity of intent while preserving the functional richness of the .NET framework. See how easy it is to build workflows with the new Visual Studio workflow designer. Learn about text-based authoring options for WF. Hear how WF integrates well with other Microsoft technologies (WCF, WPF, ASP.NET). If you've looked at WF before, come and see the changes to data flow, composition, and new control flow styles. Significant improvements to usability, composability, and performance make Workflow a great fit for a broad range of solutions on both the client and the server.

Windows Workflow Foundation 4.0: Extending with Custom Activities

Presenter: Matt Winkler

Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) coordinates and manages individual units of work, encapsulated into activities. WF comes with a rich library of activities. Learn how to extend this library by encapsulating your own APIs with custom activities. See how to compose those basic activities into higher level units using rules, flowchart, and state machine control flow styles. Learn how to build your own WF control styles. Learn how to customize and re-host the workflow authoring experience using the new WF designer framework.

Windows Communication Foundation 4.0: Building WCF Services with Windows Workflow Foundation in Microsoft .NET 4.0

Presenter: Ed Pinto

Eliminate the tradeoff between ease of service authoring and performant, scalable services. Hear about significant enhancements in WCF and WF to deal with the ever increasing complexity of communication. Learn how to use WCF to correlate messages to service instances using transport, context, and application payloads. See how the new WF messaging activities enable the modeling of rich protocols. Learn how WCF provides a default host for workflows exposing features such as distributed compensation and discovery. See how service definition in XAML completes the union of WF and WCF with a unified authoring experience that simplifies configuration and is fully integrated with IIS activation and deployment.

Kenny's talk will be an introduction to all of the new features in WF. If you haven't used WF, or if you looked at WF before and decided it wasn't right for your solution, come to this talk to see how WF makes writing programs easier. If you are using WF today, and want to see what has changed, this will be a good talk for you.

My talk will be a very hands on, write some code, style talk focused on building activities and all of the aspects of WF that impact activity development. If you are using WF today, and want to see what the changes mean for the code you'll write, this is the talk for you. Also, if you attend Kenny's talk and think, "hey, I want to learn more" this will also be the talk for you. My talk won't focus on the "why" or the "where" of workflow, but more the "how to build" parts.

Finally, Ed's talk is the talk to go to if you are a WCF developer. If you are building programs that consume services, where service is very loosely defined integrating external information into your app, you should also make sure to go to this talk. This talk will highlight a number of the enhancements that have been made both to WCF and to the integration between WF and WCF. We believe very strongly that WF and WCF are tremendously complementary technologies.

To help, I've put together the following decision table to help you decide. There are three possible actions, "Must Attend" "Should attend" and "Would Enjoy". I think they are fairly explanatory actions, but if you have questions, let me know.

	Kenny's talk: A First look	Matt's Talk : Building Activities	Ed's talk: Building WCF Services with WF
Building WF today	Must attend	Must attend	Must attend
Building WCF today	Should attend	Should attend	Must attend
Looked at WF, but didn't use it	Must attend	Must attend	Should attend
Looked at WCF, but didn't use it	Should attend	Would enjoy	Must attend
Interested in Oslo	Must attend	Should attend	Should attend
Interested in the problem of coordination	Should attend	Should attend	Should attend
Building services, or apps that consume services	Would enjoy	Would enjoy	Must attend

Can't wait to see you in LA!

More Details On WF/WCF in .NET 4.0

mwinkle — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 23:15:27 GMT

Steve Martin, a director of product management for CSD, has a blog post containing more information on the work that we are doing for the next versions of WF and WCF that we will release as a CTP at PDC. He also introduces "Dublin," the name for our efforts around creating a manageable and scalable host for WF and WCF applications, something that I know a few customers would be interested in.

For you WF and WCF fans, there some more information about some of the features that you'll hear more about at PDC. I think for customers who are using either today, you'll see something on the list below that gets you interested. And, if you're not using WF or WCF today, I think there are a few things that might make you interested. We think that the features we're introducing (especially in WF, which is close to my heart) will make it easier to use WF, in more places, and by more people. Let us know what you think. What's exciting in the list below, what do you want to hear more about, is there something else you'd like to see on the list?

WF Features

Significant improvements in performance and scalability

· Ten-fold improvement in performance

New workflow flow-control models and pre-built activities

· Flowcharts, rules

· Expanded built-in activities – PowerShell, database, messaging, etc.

Enhancements in workflow modeling

· Persistence control, transaction flow, compensation support, data binding and scoping

· Rules composable and seamlessly integrated with workflow engine

Updated visual designer

· Easier to use by end-users

· Easier to rehost by ISVs

Ability to debug XAML

WCF Features

RESTful enhancements

· Simplifying the building of REST Singleton & Collection Services, ATOM Feed and Publishing Protocol Services, and HTTP Plain XML Services using WCF

· WCF REST Starter Kit to be released on Codeplex to get early feedback

Messaging enhancements

· Transports - UDP, MQ, Local in-process

· Protocols - SOAP over UDP, WS-Discovery, WS-BusinessActivity, WS-I BP 1.2

· Duplex durable messaging

Correlation enhancements

· Content and context driven, One-way support

Declarative Workflow Services

· Seamless integration between WF and WCF and unified XAML model

· Build entire application in XAML, from presentation to data to services to workflow

Usability Testing the WF Designer vNext (or, Yelling at Customers)

mwinkle — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:22:21 GMT

One of the things that my team is working on is the next version of the workflow designer. In order to help us get real feedback, we engaged with our usability teams to design and execute a usability study.

For details on what the test looks like (when we did them 3 years ago for the first version of the WF designer, see this great channel9 video). The setup is still the same (one way glass mirror, cameras tracking the face, screen, posture of the subject), the only difference is the software, we're busy testing out some new concepts to make workflow development much more productive. At this stage of the lifecycle, we're really experimenting with some different designer metaphors, and a usability test is a great way to get real feedback.

One thing I've always tried to do since I came to Microsoft is being sucked into the Redmond bubble. The symptoms of placement inside said bubble are a gradual removal from the reality that everyday developers face. When I came to the company two years ago, I was chock full of great thoughts and ideas from the outside, and much less tolerant of the "well, that's just how it works" defense.

Slowly, though, as you start to get deep into thinking about a problem, and tightly focusing on that problem, those concerns start to fade away, as you look to optimize the experience you are providing. Sitting in on the usability labs yesterday was a great reminder to me of how easily one can slip into the bubble. Our test subject was working with a workflow in the designer and had a peculiar style of working with the property window in VS. Now, when I use VS, I use the property grid in one way. I have it docked, and I have the dock set to automatically hide. I have known some developers who prefer the Apple / photoshop style where the property pane floats. The customer's way of working with the property grid was that he had it floating, but he would close it after every interaction. This required him to do one of two things in order to display the grid again, either go to the View menu, or (and what his style of work was) right clicking on an element and selecting properties.

The prototype we were doing the usability testing with, however, does not have that feature wired up, in fact, it currently doesn't display the properties item in the context menu at all. Not because we have an evil, nefarious plan to remove the properties item inconsistently throughout our designer, but rather because no one gave it any thought when we put the prototype together as we had other UI elements we wanted to focus on.

This became a serious problem for our customer, as the way he expected to work was completely interrupted. At one point, we asked him to dock the property window so we could continue with the test. This is the most fascinating part of the study to me, and that was watching him work to dock the property grid in the left panel. I've become so used to the docking behavior in VS (see screenshot below), that it didn't even occur to me that this might present a problem for the user. Instead, we watched for 3 minutes or so as he attempted to figure out how to move the window, and then try to process the feedback that the UX elements give. About 60 seconds in or so, the property grid was about at a similar location to the screenshot, with just a centimeter or two's distance away from being in "the right place". Watching his face, we saw him look slightly confused and then move it elsewhere. Two more times he came back to that same spot, just far enough away to not get the feedback that might help him in the right direction. It was at this point, the spontaneous yelling started among the observers in the room. Something that has become so obvious to us, something we have internalized and accepted as "just the way the world," was becoming crystal clear to us how much difficulty this was causing. The yelling was things like "Move up, move up" "no, wait, over, over" "oh, you almost, almost, no...." trying to will the customer through the soundproof wall what we wanted him to do.

This situation repeated itself time and time again with different UI elements, and it was very, very educational to see the way different users manage their workspace and interact with a tool that I've become so familiar with that I forget to see the forest for the trees. I also realized, that although I had worked with a lot of customers and other developers, very rarely had I paid attention to how they work, rather than simply their work.

Now, here's where I open up the real can of worms. We're looking to make usability improvements in the WF designer. Are there any that really bother you? What can we do to make you a more productive WF developer?

We're Hiring

mwinkle — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 01:17:43 GMT

My team is looking for people interested in building the next generation of the WF designer. We've posted an opening here, please let me know if you're interested.

I can't really say too much about what we're building, but it's a great team that's committed to creating a great experience for building, editing, and viewing workflows. Everyone on the team believes in the power of a declarative model of process, and believes that tools are the way that model is consumable by humans. Everyone also believes that we're making it easier to write code and solve problems with software, which makes our mission exciting.

From the job posting:

Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is the workflow engine that powers SharePoint, Speech Server, the next major release of BizTalk, and countless customer and partner solutions as part of the .NET Framework. Our team builds the tooling that allows people to rapidly model, execute and debug the execution logic of their applications in a rich, graphical programming environment. The tools we build range from flowchart and process designers, to the visualization and management of complex rule sets. If you’re passionate about enabling the rapid modeling of process, or creating a great user experience building on the power of WPF, check us out. The tools we build will ship inside the next release of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework, and support the “Oslo” effort currently ongoing in Microsoft’s Connected Systems Division.

The Program Manager role so far has been a great experience for me (coming up on 4 months now). If you've got questions, drop me a line at mwinkle [at] [large redmond based software firm].com.

mwinkle.SetState("newRole")

mwinkle — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:46:46 GMT

I'm moving on from my role as the technical evangelist for WF, but not too far. I've joined the product team, working as a program manager (PM) for the Connected Tools team. The job of the connected tools team is to provide all of the tools for the technologies inside the Oslo effort, including the WF designer. As such, I'll be focused on the programming model for activity designers to use when they create WF activities.

Oslo is interesting, as it represents the first real chance to look at the stuff we did in V1 of WF and think about it and find out ways we can improve on the experience. .NET 3.5 was a very "constrained" release for the WF team, as we had only shipped about 12 months prior, so we were primarily concerned with adding functionality to what we shipped (the WF/WCF integration, for instance). For WF, Oslo will be our first chance to take in a lot of the feedback we have heard (and keep it coming) to move things to the next level. I'm excited to be part of that effort, especially from the designer side of things, as I see a great opportunity to simplify a number of things that a lot of our customers have been doing.

It was a tough decision to leave DPE (developer and platform evangelism). The job of a TE is probably one of the closest to geek nirvana one can achieve. It was a bit odd when I was looking into this new position to lead off by saying, "I'm leaving the best job I've had." I didn't do it because anything was wrong with the role, on the contrary, it is a perfect fit for anyone who is deeply passionate about technology and wants to drive that passion and excitement out to the rest of the world while working with an entire team of people focused on that goal. My new role offered a really unique opportunity to have a large influence on the way people see WF (literally). I'm also a bit crazy about making sure the tools are right, because that is going to be the bit of the technology most people will see first, and the way many people will interact with the product. Finally, when I look at the things I want to accomplish at Microsoft, shipping a product is a big item on that list.

As we're not talking publicly yet about a lot of the stuff we are doing in Oslo, I probably won't be blogging about it (that tends to be frowned upon for obvious reasons). I'll still be posting about WF, and as always, am interested in your feedback (and will probably use the blog to solicit some as well).

SOA&BP Conference Announcements, "Oslo"

mwinkle — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:37:04 GMT

This morning at the SOA&BP Conference, we talked about Oslo for the first time. For me, this is a big day, as it marks the point where the rest of the world knows what a lot of people have been and will continue to be working on. Robert Wahbe, the VP of Connected Systems, mentioned in the keynote that Oslo can be best viewed as a series of investments that span a number of release cycles.

What does this mean for me, a WF developer (note, these are my interpretations).

A vehicle for further investments in WF and WCF. There will be a ton of enhancements in order to enable new scenarios, take the idea of modeling processes in an executable workflow to the next level, and drive performance and functional stuff.
Moving WF to the next level, by making it a first class citizen in this modeling world, by making rules and other artifacts get elevated into a way to modeled, managed, deployed and monitored.
Getting a chance to look at what people are doing with v1, and what lessons we can learn from it. In Orcas, the stuff that we did was purely additive. This longer release gives us a chance to enhance and improve and address things that we couldn't do in the Orcas timeframe. There's some really exciting work going on here that I'm looking forward to talking about more in the future.
Finally, it gives us a better way to tell the WF hosting story, in that we will have a host and way to manage and deploy and execute WF and WCF in an host we will deliver, rather than requiring a "build on your own" approach (which still remains an option for folks who have specific hosting requirements).

Our marketing folks always get nervous when we start talking about "revolutionary" technology (although, maybe it would get us some more Apple 1984 like commercials :-) ). I've always seen workflow as a very transformational technology. I see the things that are coming in Oslo as a very natural, evolutionary step, in the process of what I believe has been, and will continue to be a revolutionary way of making us be more productive developers.

Finally, given some of the past history people have had with version numbers, I would not get caught up in the version numbers mentioned in press release. As one of the marketing guys told me, "The quotes mean something," which, translated means "The numbers are just placeholders indicating a major release beyond where we are currently at."