Windows Workflow 4.0 is Build From The Ground Up
The main components we already are familiar with such as activities, runtime, etc are still there. The new designer for workflows looks great. Sorry, phone camera is jet lagged.
Why WF?
- Coordinate work
- Write persistable applications
- Gain visibility into your application
- Customizable vocabulary and design experience
WF 4.0 vs. WF 3.0
Activity
- Authoring is simpler an takes much less code
- Fully declarative workflows and activities
- alignment across expressions, rules and activities
- Seamless composition across flow styles
Runtime
- 10-100x performance improvements
- Full control over persistence
- Flow-in transactions
- Partial trust support
- Integration with WCF, WPF, ASP.NET
Tooling
- Designer performance and usability
- Rehosting improvements
- Unified debugging experience
And much much more...
WF 4.0 is rebuild from the ground up. This was already rumored on the way over here, so no shocking news for me. Although I can imagine some of you feel a bit different about this news.
Preparing for WF 4.0
- 3.0/3.5 workflows continue to work (on the 3.0 WF runtime)
- Can use 3.0 activities within a 4.0 workflow
- Guidance on how to prepare 3.0/3.5 code
WF 4.0 now also enables you to write workflows using a textual language (DSL).