What is the best solution? Using WF StateMachine to follow user states on a web application

Question

I was looking at WF and was wondering if it would be best to use the StateMachine workflow to follow a users state. i.e. user is anonymous, user is known but not authenticated, user is known and authenticated.

would this be a good way to go about solving this regular issue?

Answer 1

No, I think that it is completely inappropriate. Please see these questions for more info:

• What are your experiences with Windows Workflow Foundation?
• When to use Windows Workflow Foundation?

Answer 2

In my experience, WF is far too heavyweight for any such use - it is too difficult to do simple things with it. It is useless for this scenario.

I'd certainly be interested in opposite experiences, though - has anyone successfully used WF on a small scale in a simple project? Workflows and state machines are integral parts of any logical business domain but I have never seen a straightforward implementation of WF or any other framework for it.

Answer 3

You might be interested in my SO answer regarding Stateless, a light weight .Net state machine. I have used this instead of WF and have implemented it in a web environment.