Programming Windows Identity Foundation is [Figuratively] on Fire!

It feels like a year already, but in fact it’s been not even 5 months that Programming Windows Identity Foundation hit the virtual and physical shelves. Last week I was hanging out with Giorgio at a certain library, and out of curiosity I checked if they had a copy of the book: it turned out that they have 24 of them, but they were all checked out and there were 4 people in queue! Besides gaining about 1Kg (~2lb) on the spot for the sheer satisfaction & consequent ego inflating, I thought it was time to jolt down few lines about how the book is going. I am sure that some will see this post as chest-thumping, but you know what: so be it. I’ve gone through the un-glamorous aspects of writing a book, I won’t feel guilty if I take a moment to celebrate the nice ones and thank who chimed in! Besides, all this is more a success of WIF itself, the technology and the approach behind it, rather than a personal one.

And the book is indeed going well! It is currently at 5 full stars on Amazon, and &1/2 stars on O’Reilly (it was 5 full starts until recently, but of course as I decided to write this post it promptly dropped ). But even more importantly: whenever I encounter a project/customer/coworker requiring use of WIF beyond trivial, it seems that the book is consistently used as reference. That makes me a haaappy panda, as this was precisely the reason for which it was written. At this point it is reasonably common to walk in the office of even never-met-before coworkers and spot one copy of the book on their desk… and I am talking big names.  That’s very, very gratifying.

The book received pretty awesome reviews, including few of them from some of the top voices in the industry such as my good friends Kim and Dave; below some links.

Kim Cameron’ Blog – Vittorio’s New Book is a Must Read

quote: “I really only have one thing to say about it:  you are crazy to program in WIF without reading this book. ”

Dave Kearns on NetworkWorld – Book, white paper tackle IdM issues

quote: “If you’re working with identity, services and applications in a Windows environment you need this book.”

Peter Kron on the WIF blog – “Programming Windows Identity Foundation” is available!

quote: “I think you’ll find this book a valuable tool for learning how to build claims-based web applications and services. Or you will keep a copy handy for reference, as I do. ”

Tatworth – Programming Windows Identity Foundation – ISBN 978-0-7356-2718-5

quote: “the book Programming Windows Identity Foundation […] is breaking new ground. I recommend this book to all ASP.NET development teams.”

[in Italian] Programmazione.it – Programming Windows Identity Foundation

All, thank you for those great reviews!

AH, let it never be said that I am not social, at least when I sit in front of a keyboard (on the internet nobody knows you’re not fully symmetrical). I wish I would have kept all the tweets about the book I’ve seen in the last few months, unfortunately Twitter’s long term memory is hard to query; however here there are all the favorites I managed to retrieve.

GBARRS Enjoying the honesty in the Windows Identity Foundation book by @vibronet

TILLIG The @vibronet "Programming Windows Identity Foundation" book is SAVING MY BACON. Go out and buy 10 copies right now. http://amzn.to/gxnGdr

RPRAKASHG this is a steal http://tinyurl.com/2fk56j8 I bought and reading again on my kindle app on ipad @vibronet had printed version b4 #fb

LARSW Received two copies of the Programming Windows Identity Foundation by Vittorio B. (@vibronet) today. Impression so far: Excellent book!

STEVESYFUHS @vibronet finished reading Programming WIF…awesome book…wish it was longer 🙂

MGERICKSON‎ @vibronet /WIF Book/ It’s well written, clear and understandable! I’ll be ordering some copies to give away at user groups! A great book!

Thank you guys for your kind words! And of course thanks for all the ones who sent me bugs & corrections, I’ll do my best to integrate those ASAP. Things never stay still, and the entire identity space keeps evolving at speedy pace; since we sent the book to the printers many new things popped up into view (ACS, WIF code for OAuth, news in the integration with Windows Azure, etc), it’s reasonable to think they might  get into the fold 🙂 

If you want to see for yourself and get a taste of the book – actually a generous serving, since it is a full 75 pages of a book of ~250 – you can download FOR FREE a PDF with chapter 2 (part of the introduction) and chapter 4 (SSO, single sign out, sessions, claims processing, HDR, authorization, the WIF STS template… a lot of stuff).

Well, what else can I say. I am obviously super-glad that people like the book and find it useful; and once again, I am grateful to the army of people who made that book even possible to begin with.

THANKS ALL!