Finding Your Best Starting Point in This Book

This book is designed to help you build skills in a number of essential areas. It assumes that you are new to WCF and takes you step by step through the fundamental concepts of WCF feature by feature. It is recommended that you follow the chapters in sequence and perform each of the exercises, as the techniques and ideas that you see in one chapter are extended by those in subsequent chapters. However, if you have specific requirements or are only interested in certain aspects of WCF, you can use the table below to find your best route through this book.

Open table as spreadsheet

If you are	Follow these steps
New to Web services and distributed applications and need to gain a basic understanding of WCF.	Install the code samples as described in the “Code Samples” section of this Introduction. Work through Chapters 1 to 5 sequentially and perform the exercises. Complete Chapters 6 to 16 as your level of experience and interest dictates.
New to Web services and distributed applications and need to learn how to use WCF to implement solutions using common Web services features such as sessions, transactions, and reliable messaging.	Install the code samples as described in the “Code Samples” section of this Introduction. Work through Chapters 1 to 9 sequentially and perform the exercises. Complete Chapters 10 to 16 as your level of experience and interest dictates.
Familiar with Web services and distributed applications, and need to learn about WCF quickly, including its advanced features.	Install the code samples as described in the “Code Samples” section of this Introduction. Skim the first chapter to get an overview of WCF, but perform the exercises. Read Chapter 2 and perform the exercises. Skim Chapter 3. Read Chapters 4 and 5 and complete the exercises. Skim Chapters 6 to 9, performing the exercises that interest you. Complete the remaining chapters and exercises.
Familiar with security concepts but need to understand how to use the security features that WCF provides.	Install the code samples as described in the “Code Samples” section of this Introduction. Skim the first three chapters. Read Chapters 4 and 5 and perform the exercises. Skim Chapters 6 to 14. Read Chapter 15 and complete the exercises. Skim Chapter 16.
Referencing the book after working through the exercises.	Use the index or the Table of Contents to find information about particular subjects. Read the Summary sections at the end of each chapter to find a brief review of the concepts and techniques presented in the chapter.