Microsoft Silverlight Books

Silverlight 2, Microsoft's new web framework for developing rich internet applications, brings the developer and the designer together. This cross-browser, web-oriented subset of Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation plugs into the browser and provides an easy-to-use toolkit for building rich internet applications in JavaScript or any .NET language such as C# or VB. When coupled with designer-friendly graphics tools like Microsoft Expression Blend, designers, web developers, bloggers, and CSS/HTML beginners can all take advantage of Silverlight's comprehensive platform.

Hacking Silverlight is an example-rich Silverlight tutorial that explores the developer/designer workflow key to any successful internet application. This book teaches you in small steps supported by larger lab examples. After you master the basics, you'll learn to work on projects in Visual Studio and Expression Blend at the same time, how to use source control to manage your projects, how to deploy applications successfully, and more.

As part of an elite group hand-picked by Microsoft to test early Silverlight builds and develop sample applications, author David Kelley has hundreds of hours of production-level Silverlight experience. This book guides the reader through a running case study of an actual, large scale Silverlight project created by the author. You'll also learn to create gadgets and mashups using cutting-edge environments like Volta and Popfly. Along the way, you'll pick up unique tips and best practices based on the author's unusually-deep experience with Silverlight 2.