I have VSLive Gold Passport access. This gives me access to all presentations in the conference and I can move between them as I see fit. Today I am starting off with Windows Workflow Foundation, presented my Ken Getz, from MCW Technologies. I have seen Mr. Getz’s presentations many times over the last six years and he is quite a skilled presenter of complex information. Windows Workflow Foundation (WF, for Work Flow, I presume) is a way of graphically syncing a business or code logic with the code itself. This is done with XML under the covers of the hosting environment, in this case, Visual Studio 2005 or 2008.

If that means nothing to you, you will have to take my word that this is quite cool. I have used several development tools over the years and the technology to keep code in direct sync with the model of business workflow activity is priceless. Tools like Rational Rose could do this to a limited extent, but this was not done in real-time and with simultaneous reciprocal updates.

I often believe the Microsoft is going insane where it comes to its marketing and things like the desire to buy Yahoo. That is another story, but a few of my friends in Microsoft in a position to know believes the business goal for that acquisition makes sense. With Software development tools, Microsoft has got it and done it right. They have always treated the independent developers well with quality development tools and kits for low or no cost.

The continual progression of integrated visual modeling tools and development tools has been phenomenal. Microsoft has done this right, with one failing that I am aware of – the cross platform interoperability (read that as MS does not like non-MS code). Said another way, the tools work best (or sometimes only) if you are writing code for the Windows platforms.