WSSF was a tool that included best practices for creating WCF services. It has been many years since I used it, but basically I remember the wizard who asked several (actually a lot) questions about the service (contract), data (model), etc. What it will produce is a well-organized solution with several projects with correct naming conventions, detailed declarations, such as adding IsOneWay = true / false to [OperationBehavior] or IsRequired = true / false, Order = n, etc. . in [DataContract]. In other words, he generated a very verbose code that most of us dump until we need it.
He did more, although, for example, he structured your decision to have service contracts in one project, data transfer contracts in another, and implementation in another. He created test projects (I think). So, a very granular solution layout. I remember that the simplest of the services would lead to 6-7 projects in the solution. At first it was a little intimidating until you slipped the code that it generated.
Another interesting feature that he (at the time when many asked) is the way to make the first contract. Given the existing metadata of web services, you can create a new service solution.
In any case, as soon as it was completed, you just had to substantially ensure the implementation of the methods. Personally, I never took it to develop services. But at that time, I appreciated this and often turned to him customers who were new to the development of services, because I knew that this would lead them to the right start.
Comment on your concerns though ...
- This is correct, and he does not have the resources to update it.
- In fact, there is quite a bit of documentation. Just go to the "Home" tab and you will see links to it.
- Not sure about that. The code that it generates belongs to you. You still have to compile it, and you will need to keep going forward. No different from any other code generation tool (as far as I know).
- No, it is not. Also consider the time it was developed, the .NET Framework 2 - 3.x. Since then, much has been added to WCF. There were also some new recommendations for the development of services. If you use some of the new features added in the .NET Framework 3.5SP and later (which you probably are), then this is definitely not what I would recommend.
- Again, this was one of the nice features (first contract development). But that was not the main idea. It was a tool to create the foundation for new services. In fact, the new service was the original motivation of the tool, as I recall. After you took the time to go through the dialogs, you had a really good solution to get started.