A tricky question about WCF

Question

As msdn says:

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a framework for building service-oriented applications.

So it will be consider as one of the another .Net Frameworks?

If not why its saying as a framework.?

Don't think its a simple question, now days during most of the interviews section this question pops up.

Dhananjay Kumar · Answer

Very first we need to understand the term Framework  . Framework is nothing but collection of classes to achieve a particular task. Or in other words  When collection of classes being used together to achieve a task then that collection of classes may term as Framework together  We know .Net is a framework and we can say .Net is collection of classes also . In the same way  if we say WCF is a Framework somehow we are right. Because WCF is also a collection of classes allows us to write application adhering to Service oriented architecture. Having said that  as we know  WCF collection of classes is sub set of .Net collection of classes  so we may rephrase WCF Framework is subset of .Net Framework. Gist is giving a noun Framework to WCF is not wrong at absolute though. Thanks Happy Coding

Suthish Nair · Answer

I like to accept above all thread as Answers. The more simply explained thread is from Dhananjay so i go for that.

Sahil Jani · Answer

Hi Suthish in your openion what should be the correct reply to give to the interviewers...? :)

Sam Hobbs · Answer

In my understanding of the word framework it is like a skeleton that is built upon. Microsoft however redefines words to make something sound better. I think that Microsoft wizards don't have much intelligence but the term wizard traditionally refers to exceptional intelligence. Microsoft seems to have also redefined the term evangelist. The Visual Studio term for Solution was called a Workspace in the past. I think the term Solution is not the most appropriate term. I think that what Microsoft calls a framework is more accurately called tools and materials but the challenge for Microsoft is to find a relevant word that sounds impressive and that does not have baggage associated with it in the sense of being used in other contexts that Microsoft does not want to be associated with.

Suthish Nair · Answer

yep DK tats a good reply..

Raja Krishnamurthy · Answer

It seems to me that if interviewers are relying on 'hair splitting' questions like this to filter out suitable candidates then the programming industry is in an even poorer state than I thought it was! @Vulpes: I cannot agree with you more..... After drilling me for 1.5 hrs on .Net 3.5 (Generics / Iterators / Threading / WPF etc.) and Sql Server 2005(Back up strategy / Linked Servers / SSRS / SSAS etc.).....I figured out that the position is for a maintenance application which is in .Net 2.0. I found it most frustrating since the questions did not even match their needs :-( @Suthish: Even though your question is very genuine and people like Sahil Vulpes and Dhananjay have already given their answers and in my opinion all are right but which answer is right from an interviewer's point?....I don't see the practicability in the question which the interviewer is asking.....Whether it is a framework or if it is a part of the framework how does it matter??? If there are questions like how do you configure the end points....What do you have to change in your configuration if the service is going to return a big stream of video or something which tests the working knowledge of the candidate then that would make more sense. This is just my humble opinion that interviews should be a morale boosting experience for candidates and not a confidence killer. If I have offended anybody reading this then I apologize.

Vulpes · Answer

I don't think that there's the slightest doubt that WCF is part of 'the Microsoft .NET Framework'. It's as much a part of the .NET Framework as ASP.NET Windows Forms WPF ADO.NET and WWF are. The distinction between these 'applied technologies' and the core framework is that the latter provides the basic functionality which all types of .NET applications can use.

Suthish Nair · Answer

A discussion only not questioning anyone. Here the talk is about the terms or sentences used to define a technology. Mamta You are almost right. WCF using the .Net framework to work. At the same time its behaves as a framework also. We can say WCF is an API using the .Net framework. Sahil The sentence part of the .NET frame work means what. Vulpes reply satisfied this? Vulpes Now days people can ask lots of different questions to candidates even if its a stupid whatever the reason behind it. I hope you remember one of our old thread we discussed with same situation :) Looking for more inputs..

Crish · Answer

This is good answer for u

Vulpes · Answer

It seems to me that if interviewers are relying on 'hair splitting' questions like this to filter out suitable candidates then the programming industry is in an even poorer state than I thought it was! As Sahil rightly says WCF is part of the .NET Framework though not a core part. It's one of the 4 'distributed system' technologies the others being : remoting web services and CardSpace. It was first included in version 3.0 of the .NET Framework.

Sahil Jani · Answer

Hi Suthish You have asked a very good and tricky question. But I have read the full article on msdn regarding WCF is :: WCF is the part of the .NET frame work that provides a unified programming model for rapidly building service-oriented applications that communicate across the web and the enterprise. You can check this link also for further refferences :: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663324.aspx So you can say that WCF is not another .NET framework bu it is a part of the .NET framework.

Mamta M · Answer

The word framework actually applies to many of the technologies under .NET (such as WPF ASP.NET AJAX and so on) but that does not mean that each of them is a .NET framework it just means that each of them is a framework. For example WPF is commonly called as a presentation framework ASP.NET AJAX is also a Web app dev framework for RIA and so forth.