Microsoft Silverlight Books

Great Silverlight 3 Programmers Reference

This is one of the best ( if not the best) silverlight 3 programmer's reference, it details each and every feature of the whole structure and architecture of silverlight, from basics to custom controls, animations and a very useful Silverlight base class libraries reference. This book comes in full color with the same color structure you will find in the real Visual Studio 2008 or Microsoft Expression Blend, it explains the use of the silverlight plug-in on different Operative Systems like, Mac OS, Linux and others.
This book is probably not the best selection for beginners, the reader should have at least the basic knowledge of XML, ASP.NET, JavaScript and VB.Net or C#.net.
The best chapter from my perspective is chapter 8, which explains how to apply style and deal with resources, in this chapter the authors explain in detail and with lots of simple examples how to apply color effects and different types of borders, font-types Shapes, Shadows, Etc.
Just like I mentioned before, this is a great programmers reference and I absolutely recommend it to increase your silverlight experience and look forward for future releases and new possible features.



JORGE_C
08 February, 2010

Fills in the Gaps for the Experts

I usually don't write reviews (no time), but in this case I thought I would put in my two cents worth. This book is definitely not a comprehensive step-by-step walkthrough of Silverlight. As the one reviewer mentioned, go get McDonald's book if that's what you want. This book actually seems to ramble on from one topic to the next. I find it necessary to get as many books as possible on any new Microsoft technology, since MS's documentation is always so poor. Sometimes it gets better as time goes on, but there are many MS technologies whose details remain largely undocumented. SharePoint, WPF and many other technologies that are even fairly mature have quirks that are only discoverable through decompilation, searching through blogs and through some of the books that are written about them. As an experienced WPF developer, I needed some discussion of the specific differences between WPF and SilverLight and this book provided good detail in this area. I don't need WPF layout, etc. regurgitated, since most of it is the same in SilverLight. This book fills in some important information (good info. on calling Web services, interaction with JavaScript, etc.) that is not covered or as well covered in other books. So, I'm giving it five stars because of the time it saved me figuring out some of the more esoteric aspects of SilverLight.

Kurt Matis
29 November, 2009

Get this book if you want a good balance between Reference and Tutorial

This book is awesome. The authors do a great job of balancing Reference with Tutorials and General Insight. Whatever you do, do not skip the Introduction. It provides some great background then guidance on how to use the book.

I've quitely sat back and watched Silverlight mature at a very quick rate, but we could never trust it for our Line of Business (LOB) apps because the data binding was not there. Now, with RIA Data Services and the new controls we are leaving ASP.NET and AJAX frameworks as quickly as we can.

With the help of this fine book, I was able to build CRUDs and transaction processing code for our existing LOB app in four hours. Four hours and we have replaced what took us a few weeks to write in older technologies. And we are using SL 4, so don't think this book is now outdated. We relied extensively on "Chapter 5-Controls" to employ the native DataGrid. It had all we needed to write production quality code. If we want to really tune the grid with some more obscure attributes we'll just search it up online.

If you want the absolute nth level of reference then do what the rest of us do... search then read it online. This book was never intended to be the end-all reference, just a good balance between Reference, Tutorials, and General Insight. As founding member of our .NET Users Group I will recommend it every chance I get to our members.

K. Rowe
22 November, 2009

Great coverage of Silverlight 3

In July, I was offered the opportunity to review Wrox Publishing's newly released "Professional Silverlight 3", a massive full-color book covering nearly ever aspect of Silverlight 3. I've long been a Wrox fan and as a WPF developer with a web background I have a keen interest in all things Silverlight, so naturally I jumped at the chance to review this new book. Unfortunately, life did what it always does and prevented me from completing the review until now.

NOTE: I finalized this article while attending PDC09, where Scott Guthrie announced Silverlight 4. This release interval for Silverlight has been unprecedented: only three months after the official Silverlight 3 launch! I am confident though that you will still find this book timely and valuable.

As expected, Wrox does not disappoint. Authors J. Ambrose Little, Jason Beres, Grant Hinkson, Devin Rader, and Joseph Croney, all from Infragistics, have provided a wonderful edition that should capture the attention of both fledgling and experienced Silverlight developers. In fact, the introduction and first four chapters should be mandatory reading: they provide the perfect overview to this game changing technology all .Net professionals should understand whether or not their particular interests run towards Silverlight.

If you have never read a full color technical book, you'll quickly find this is wonderful addition. The numerous graphics and screen shots jump off the page, making the material easily consumable. In addition, all code and XAML samples are in full color as well, mimicking the default IntelliSense color scheme. This is perhaps the best part of having a .NET volume printed in full color because it allows us to read code on the page in the same manner in which we are used to reading it on screen. I've always found it a bit unpalatable to read code on the printed page, but this feature makes the code imminently more readable.

The book itself is very well written and easy to follow. The style of the authors reveals their mastery of the material without being overbearing. This is an extremely accessible book to those new to Silverlight but contains plenty of material for the more experienced developer. While the text is clear and concise, in no way is this a light read. Silverlight is a very large topic and any book that attempts to do it justice needs to be sized to the task. That being said, I would not attempt this book, or many like it, cover to cover. While none of the chapters is superfluous, if you are new to Silverlight or WPF, beyond the requisite 4 chapters mentioned above, I would begin with chapters 7, 8, 12 and 14. I would tackle the rest of the chapters on an as needed basis.

Another item I really appreciated in this book was the frequent inclusion of Microsoft Expression Blend. Blend is an invaluable tool for developing WPF and Silverlight applications and yet I find it frequently passed over in technical publications. Going forward, the more complex XAML based applications become, the more imperative it is going to be for developers to learn Blend, so it is nice to see a Silverlight book give Blend the attention it deserves.

On a scale of 1-5, I give this book 4.5 stars. This book is exactly what it needs to be, a great reference aimed at professional developers. I know that as I get more serious about my Silverlight development efforts, I will be reaching for this book frequently.

Joel Cochran
19 November, 2009

Amazing Book to Start Silverlight with

Thanks to all those guys who has spent their crucial time in writing this wonderful book. Another main thing about this book is the way it is laid out and user friendly that increases the interest of the reader.

Thanks

Kinjalkumar Patel
03 November, 2009