Chapter 5. Applications

The previous two chapters have focused on the details of the execution model for activities. Now we will turn our attention to the larger-scale lifecycle of a WF program instance, which will lead us to examine the WF programming model from the perspective of the application that hosts the WF runtime. Along the way, we will introduce and discuss in detail a set of concepts related to WF program instance management including WF program instance passivation, suspension, and termination. We will also encounter several extensibility points offered by the WF runtime, which allow the character of the WF runtime to be tailored to the needs of the application in which it is being used. Finally, we will demonstrate that the WF runtime is source format agnostic and can accommodate WF programs that are represented in formats other than XAML.