Yesterday I ran across what I thought was the coolest possible unveiling at PDC 05 (some detailed info on LINQ). Then I got home from work today and saw some interesting blog posts on WWF (Windows Workflow Foundation). What is that you ask, well it is not the resurgence of overpaid loud juicers throwing each other around on a canvas ring.

Ok then what could it be? Well if you watch the overview by Scott Woodgate and company (Windows Workflow Foundation) it looks like yet another major advancement in the toolset for buiding solutions that fit into an enterprise service-oriented architecture. Let me clarify, this technology in fact would be the tool to aggregate those loosley coupled components that are often considered enterprise "services". So the better definition would be the glue that finally allows us to piece meal together meaningful solutions from existing application building block services.

Of course most of my excitement is based on a demonstration from three guys in a room that is a couple thousand miles away. I am anxiously awaiting some CTP bits and some documentation to explain what has been delivered here. I still have many more questions than answers.

• Where does this position itself when it comes to Biztalk 2006? I just started to appreciate the value of WCF adapters with Biztalk but now I'm trying to understand how much WWF will help to enable typical workflow development.
• This is presented as a set of developers tools but I'm not sure this is really development work anymore. This almost is positioned as a model driven approach. Is this toolset usable by non-developers even?
• The WWF team talks about this being proprietary to the windows OS but it can consume WCF endpoints. Are there any plans to consider adapters that will enable interoperability with other platforms?
• Is this actually anything more than just portions of Biztalk baked into the .Net framework?
• What type of role does this play in an enterprise SOA?

I'm sure I'll think of some more, these were just my initial reactions after seeing the demonstration on Channel 9. If you get a chance watch it, it is really something to see. I'm still trying to figure out where this freaking came from.

More Info: Windows Workflow Foundation