WSE 3.0 is a bit like crack, but i digress.

I was thinking today how Microsoft's WSE 3.0 toolkit is much like crack. You visit some guy who appears to be a friend and offers you "good stuff". Two weeks down the line, you realise you're in deep s**t and want out. OK, i exaggerate, its not that bad to use, but using an API should be:

Intuitive, as indeed much of the .NET framework is.

Consistent - more on this in my next post.

Free from obtuse dependencies.

On the project i'm working on Microsoft's excellent publication Framework Design Guidelines by Brad Abrams and Krzysztof Cwalina has been the Source of Truth where the decision isn't obvious (Collection or Array?, Shall i expose that List?). This has prevented a lot of nonsense code going into the SDK so hats off to the aforementioned.

It seems odd that M$ in their wisdom, haven't met their own high standards in an API they provide. Anyway rather than moan about it, i thought i'd share how to use the damn thing for anyone considering this. Bear in mind, that later offerings (.NET 3.0's Windows Communication Foundation) may do what you need - but hey, if you wanna use WSE, i'm not going to stop you.

I'll post here when i've put together a decent example on how to get this working.