Workflow and Communication Foundations Updates Coming

The .NET Framework 4, now in its second beta as part of Visual Studio (VS) 2010 and expected to ship in Apr. 2010, includes a new version of the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and an updated Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). WF 4 is a complete rewrite of the programming framework which delivers improvements including simplified coding and better performance, but it is not backward compatible with the current version of WF. WCF 4 reduces configuration overhead, adds message routing and service discovery, and is backward compatible with previous WCF releases, all of which could ease application deployment.

The .NET Framework includes the Common Language Runtime (CLR), a software engine for loading and running applications, and class libraries, hierarchically organized collections of code that developers can use in their applications to build interfaces, access databases and files, and communicate over the Web. WF and WCF, specialized components for workflow and communications, respectively, were first released as part of the .NET Framework 3.0 in Jan. 2007.