Microsoft Silverlight Books

Not a HOW-TO but theory

If you are looking for a AJAX how-to book then this is not the book for you. You have to go through a lot of text to find the development material. Its all theory. Not a single program in its entirety but small functions in lot of text.

This book detail about the history, need and architecture. That might interest some manager but even then, no one has a lot of time to get this information. At least I dont.

Its title should be "AJAX for IT managers who are living in cave and dont know about AJAX"

Fazal Abbas
09 September, 2010

Microsoft ASP.NET and AJAX: Architecting Web Applications (PRO-Developer) CRAP!

I am a Senior .NET Developer for SSN and I think this book is total ****! I am sorry, some ideas from it are cool, but I buy books to see useful examples of all the why's and how to's, and if you are like me, you will find this book useless. I read the book in a weekend and I didn't learn anything worthwhile.

Douglas Ford
31 August, 2010

Good Content, Blah Design Hurts Overall Product

'Microsoft ASP.NET and AJAX: Architecting Web Applications' is a good book for the current .NET AJAX developer looking to get their feet wet and ready to swim. The content is written well, and the author knows his stuff, but whoever made the decision to go with such a blah design swung and missed on this one. AJAX has been one of the 'hot' terms in computers for a half decade now, and the market has lots of material on the subject. People hear 'AJAX' and not only do they expect to get the steak, they want some sizzle to go along with it. This book provides no sizzle. Lack of color and design sex appeal hurt the overall product. Many people will say "who cares what it looks like" but for this type of subject matter, I don't want the layout that comes with an Assembly or C book, I want that web design PIZAZZ and it's just not there.

Pick this up if you are an AJAX developer who is looking to grow your skillset. If you are just a casual developer looking for AJAX references in the store, no doubt you might walk right by this title. Good enough, but it could be better.

**** RECOMMENDED

Daniel McKinnon
01 April, 2010

Good current book, about to be outdated quickly

Dino is a well respected author and developer. I have read at least five of his books. They range from old school ADO.NET to architecting web applications for the enterprise (highly recommend that read). This book is well written and organized. The content is heavy on the front end as the title suggests. You will explore the kludgy innards of JavaScript. jQuery and many Ajax approaches are also considered. In addition, Dino puts his own personal spin on patterns and processes.

The book starts very well with a background in the Ajax surge. It then jumps into the client side, patterns, binding to the client and ends with RIA's. Overall this is solid and I recommend the read if not quick skimming after the fifth chapter.

However, .NET 4.0 is right around the corner. The client side bindings, more jQuery integration and updated Microsoft Ajax JavaScript libraries will change a lot of how this book approaches Ajax. Therefore, its an interim book for those not looking to move to 4.0 and live in at least the 3.5 world for the foreseeable future.

It delves into Silverlight a bit and. But has no mention of the ground swell of popularity that is ASP.NET MVC and its fairly elegant Ajax approach. One of the highlights is Dino's insight into the pros and cons of partial rendering vs. full scale asynchronous approaches. I have been on an enterprise application where we had to implement the former. He nailed the reasons why.

Read this book if you want a good background in current technologies that are changing at the speed of light. It won't be a gold source for later pick up and review though.

D. S. Cherry Jr.
21 January, 2010

Another great book from a prolific author

Most of the Ajax and JavaScript books focus on implementation and that's a good thing. However those books do not describe how Ajax fits within an architecture of an application. This books captures it succinctly. I also recommend author's other book "Microsoft .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise"

Umed Zokirov
14 December, 2009