I assume you, the reader, are an experienced developer and that you are comfortable with object-oriented concepts such as encapsulation and inheritance. I will take advantage of your existing understanding of object and component technology and terminology, and port that knowledge to WCF. You should ideally have a fair understanding of .NET and know basic C# 2.0 (including use of generics and anonymous methods). Although the book uses C# for the most part, it is just as pertinent to Visual Basic 2005 developers.