I’m in WF/WCF training this week, so any daytime blogging will be on breaks and at lunch. So far, the instructor is pretty good, though we’ve only covered “intro to WCF” so far. Given the amount of content he’s laid out, I wonder how were going to get through it all.

The instructor said something interesting as he was going over the bindings that come “out of the box” with WCF. He commented that these bindings were the ones the WCF developers thought would be used most often. Of course, he doesn’t speak for the WCF team, but it does make some kind of sense. You can extend WCF to support any potential binding, but it makes sense the WCF team would want to enable the common cases without having to write much code.

So take a look at the list of nine standard bindings. Given that WCF is about unifying the windows stack for distributed computing, most of the bindings are at least conceptually similar or in some cases leverage previous distributed paradigms and technologies. You have two HTTP based bindings (with and without WS-* extensions) which are analogous to ASMX and WSE. There’s a TCP binding which is comparable to .NET remoting. And there are two MSMQ bindings (with and without SOAP support) for those needing to interop with existing MSMQ systems or who need durable messaging.

That leaves four “new” standard bindings. These are interesting as they don’t herald back to previous technologies and paradigms of distributed computing (at least on the Windows platform) but still the WCF team thought enough of the scenarios they enable to include them in the box with WCF. For example, I the wsFederationHttpBinding is designed to take advantage of the significant investment they’ve made in federated identity. Several years ago, Don Box talked about shrinking the service metaphor rather than stretching the object metaphor across the network. NetNamedPipesBinding is an obvious implementation of that vision. And wsDualHttpBinding is a way to take advantage of the WCF’s duplex channel shape while still using HTTP as your transport.

Finally, there’s netPeerTCPBinding. From where I sit, this is a radical addition to an otherwise standard set of bindings. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it’s there. But I’m guessing developers who look at it are more likely to think along the lines of “Wow, what can I do with this?” rather than “Yes, I expected that to be there.” Certainly, that was my thought process.

Anyone got any cool uses for netPeerTCPBinding?

The 06-07 NHL season finally starts tonight. This offseason feels longer than most, probably because I’ve been more involved with hockey this past offseason. But the opening night rosters are set and the Sabres and Hurricanes face off in just over five hours. Here are a few quick thoughts:

• NHL.com has gotten a make over. I don’t know who their designer is, but somewhat should clue them into “less is more”.
• There’s a new beta service called NHL Connect. Looks like forums and blogs and profiles right on NHL.com. Looks cool, but currently it’s invite only. I would hope it would open up soon. Nice to see Caps fans representing – the Washington Capitals Official Group is tied with the Kings for most number of members (so far).
• Via Off Wing Opinion I found this article by Dave Fay about the NHL’s point system. His recommendation: “winning a game in regulation should be worth three points, winning in overtime should be worth two, winning in a shootout should be worth one. Losing at any time should be what the reward has always been for losing — zero.” I could live with that. I’m also cool with two points for a win and none for a loss, regardless if it goes to overtime or shootout. I’d even be OK (but not elated) with three for a win in regulation, two for a win in overtime or shootout and one for a loss in overtime or shootout. But the idea that you had out more total points for an overtime game than a non overtime game is just stupid.

Udi emailed me over the weekend to let me know that he had issues leaving a comment on one of my posts. If you’ve had any issues commenting here on DevHawk, please drop me a line and let me know.

Thanks!

My wife Julie has a degree in sociology. Furthermore, she has a knack for sociology, the way I have a knack for computers. It’s part of what makes her such a great mom and teacher. Anyway, Julie once told me that sociology is easy because everything you need to know about a given theory is in the title. Not sure how true that is in sociology in general, but it certainly is true of my own personal sociological theory, the aptly named “Harry Pierson’s Numero Uno Theory of Sociology”, which states:

Everyone Looks Out For Numero Uno.

This applies not only to individuals, but also to organizations. When forced to choose between what is “right” (as defined by the organization’s core principles) and what will protect the organization’s long-term survival, the organization will always choose to protect itself and sacrifice its core principles.

I first came up with this theory several years ago, when the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal was in full swing. The Catholic Church – like pretty much all religions – has very rigid definitions of what is right in the way of values and morality. Yet when their own priests violated these very principles and acted immorally, the representatives of the church chose to “look out for numero uno” and protect the organization by suppressing the evidence rather than doing what is right by their own definition.

Now we’re embroiled in a similar scandal, this time in politics. Last week, Congressman Mark Foley (R-Fla) resigned when it came to light that he had sent sexually explicit emails and IM’s to underage male Congressional pages. While criminal, what makes this a Numero Uno scandal is that Republican leadership has known these messages since late last year but decided to “look out for numero uno” and try to cover it up. Even as late as last week, Congressman Tom Reynolds’ (R-NY) chief of staff Kirk Fordham tried to cut a deal with ABC “not to publish the raw, sexually explicit messages“.

The fallout from this scandal has already been massive. Liberals and conservatives alike are appalled by both Foley’s predatory behavior and Republican leadership’s attempt to sweep it under the rug. While other recent scandals on Capital Hill – such as those involving Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham – have been further reaching, Foley’s scandal is more likely to be covered at length by the mainstream media. To quote Kevin Drum, “It involves sex, it involves coverups, it involves powerful players turning on each other to protect their own skins, and it involves lots of documentary evidence.” Like it or not, that’s the kind of scandal that gets eyeballs and ratings.

The timing couldn’t be worse for Republicans, as this comes barely a month before the mid-term elections. Most political analysts give the Democrats a decent chance to take back the majority in one or both houses of Congress, and that was before this scandal broke. We won’t know how big an impact the Foley scandal will have until after the mid term elections.

However, if Republican leadership had dealt with it last fall or even last spring, the election impact would have been drastically reduced. Of course, it would have gotten wall-to-wall media coverage, but it would have lacked the coverup angle and it wouldn’t be taking up so much pre-election airtime now. Foley wouldn’t be on the ballot in Florida. And I wonder what this will do to Republican voter turnout across the board, given that a significant percentage of conservative voters are anti-homosexual.

But that’s the thing about Numero Uno, you’re always looking out for it, regardless of the potential consequences down the road.

Saw these on Reg Braithwaite’s while I was reading that Wasabi cannot cure rotten fish.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

And my new personal personal favorite:

“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.”
Howard Aitken

I like that quote so much, I updated my email signature to include it.