Microsoft Silverlight Books

.NET Developer Group Coban

Este libro es muy util ya que pienso que Silverlight es mucho mejor que Flash, ademas el libro lo presenta de forma sencilla.

By: Oscar Garcia

Jose Rolando Guay Paz
19 July, 2009

Best resource I've found so far

This book comprehensivley covers all of the important topics required for constructing SilverLight apps that are interacting with different data sources through WCF or REST. It provides very detailed information on the different techniques available. It includes a great chapter on using ADO.Net Data Services, including how to use the Entity Framework. Most developers will pick one particular data integration architecture and stick with it, this book will certainly help architects to make the correct decision and answer their questions regarding the different alternatives. A valuable resource.

Neil Kimber
16 April, 2009

excellent silverlight reference

My favorite parts of this book include data binding and ado.net
data services. I did wish that john covered asp.net ajax a bit deeper
and went into sql custom domain modeling. John papa writes for msdn
magazine and his books and articles are a pleasure to read....

W. Simons
13 April, 2009

Essential for any Silverlight 2 developer

Developers and businesses alike are starting to see the benefits of Silverlight 2 and more and more are starting to take advantage of it's capabilities. Most web-developers have a good knowledge of Microsoft's .Net platform, they also have good knowledge of HTML, CSS and all the other technologies surrounding the web. However presentation fairly much still is lacking on the web front, even with the acceptance of AJAX, it's still like an amateurs representation of the Mona Lisa compared with the desktop cousins. The first version of Silverlight was mainly geared towards video and audio and was restricted to the Javascript language. With the introduction of Silverlight 2, you now have pre-built controls at your disposal, C# and VB.Net programming access and a whole lot more. The painting has now gone from being amateurish to professional but still not quite the original. Now however developers can re-use their existing .Net Framework knowledge without having to learn another language like Flash and have a rich user experience. One thing that you will definitely need is data. Data is king in any application and gaining access to your data is what this book is all about.

Silverlight 2 introduced various ways in which you can gain access to your data, through RESTful web services, SOAP, RSS, AtomPub, POX, JSON, direct from a backend database etc. etc. You can write your own data layers or bind directly to controls and can even use LINQ.

John Papa takes you by the hand and shows you how to do all of the above scenarios and more. The book is very well written, easy to read and understand and no filler (something I'm really disliking about certain books, putting filler in just to increase page count).

There are whole chapters dedicated to each of the main ways to gain access to your data and bind it to your front end application with numerous examples throughout including how to read Tweets, access and consume Amazon RESTful services, the ADO.Net Entity Framework etc. If there is a way to access data you will find out how to incorporate that into your Silverlight 2 application with this book. And of course, you can also take the techniques John has so masterfully expounded on in this book and use them in your standard ASP.Net web sites as well.

If you're a Silverlight developer, this is one of those must have books. You'll refer to it over and over. Even if you're a standard ASP.Net developer it is worth taking a look through this book as most of the content can very easily be applied to a normal ASP.Net site.



Colin Brown
06 April, 2009

Repetitive - where were the editors?

The book may be the best available at this time and I appreciate it exists already. But I could have waited another week or two to have it cleaned up. It looks like the author never took the time to plan where he would introduce concepts and hence ended up introducing them repeatedly. Or do authors get paid by the page? For instance, the concept that a DataContext for a control can be specified at every level in the control hierarchy above (and including) this control is mentioned SIX times (pages 27, 28, 36 (twice), 37, and 38). Explaining INotifyPropertyChanged and Binding Modes is important, but does it really need 21 pages to cover them? Do we really need an example with 10 properties (both in C# and VB) to get it? Couldn't the XAML (page 51) at least be clean? On page 101 he writes (no kidding!)

"This window will search for any service that exposes Web Services Description Language (WSDL), which makes it discoverable. Both WCF web services and ASMX web services support SOAP 1.1 and are discoverable, so you can find them through this window. You can add as a service reference from a Silverlight 2 application any SOAP service that is discoverable and supports the basic profile of SOAP 1.1. Discoverable services are those that support WSDL. These include both WCF services and ASMX services"

John Papa's articles in MSDN Magazine are of much higher quality.
So I definitely do not agree with others who claim this book is very well written. When I read the same thing over and over again I feel I am listening to a poorly prepared presentation, taking too much of my time. Hopefully next time the editors (are allowed to) play their role. The subject deserves it.

Marcus F. Schluper
01 April, 2009

Solid Material but (annoyingly) repetitive

I give the book 5 stars for the topics covered overall, but only 3 stars for repeating things over and over. If it were not to the source code excerpts, the book would be closer to a transcript of an SL class than to a commercial book.

To get an idea of how annoying things are at times, consider the following two sentences from the first paragraph in page 150:

"The ADO.NET EF is a far more powerful tool than LINQ to SQL, and it can easily create a domain entity model that is mapped to a database. The EF can easily create a domain entity model that is mapped to a database."

Other examples of repetitiveness include descriptions of cross-domain restrictions, binding modes, etc...




MEERIGH MOHAND
24 March, 2009

A pick for developer libraries strong in Silverlight and advanced business programming applications

John Papa's DATA-DRIVEN SERVICES WITH SILVERLIGHT 2 tells how to build data-rich business applications using Silverlight 2 and multiple sources of data. From how such applications bind, save, query and present data to how web services work with Silverlight2 and how to use WCF and Entity to retrieve and save data, this is a pick for developer libraries strong in Silverlight and advanced business programming applications.


Midwest Book Review
14 March, 2009

Great Book on Silverlight Data

John gets data. That's the important part of this book in my opinion. This is the book I recommend to my students who need to know how to access web services, WCF, ADO.NET Data Services or REST-based data. I highly recommend the book for all Silverlight developers.

Shawn Wildermuth
12 March, 2009

If you use Silverlight, this book is for you.

There are lots of good books that cover the fundamentals of Silverlight, but this book goes deeper! If you're a practicing Silverlight developer, or even if you're just interested, you owe it to yourself to buy this book. It covers REST services like crazy. Are you interested in accessing data with the WebClient or HttpWebRequest classes? Are you interested in accessing RSS/ATOM feeds? Are you interested in ADO.Net Data Services (Astoria)? All this info is in here.

Data access in Silverlight is a complicated topic, and this book is a great guide to that world. It's also (I hope) representative of a new wave of technical books that give great overviews to narrow (but essential) technical topics.

Erik Mork
10 March, 2009

Outstanding Reference

As someone that writes and speaks about Silverlight, I'm not sure I can say enough about this book. John has provided a path for the person unfamiliar with data concepts and Silverlight to get not only into the water, but completely immersed in it.

I can't think of any concept that is lacking in this book, and considering it's size (330 pages), that's saying a lot.

If you're working with Silverlight and are a developer, you need this book. There you go... a one-sentence review.

Good One John!

D. Campbell
25 February, 2009

Great Silverlight 2 Resource

I've just started to dig my way into Silverlight 2 and this book has been invaluable in getting me up to speed on the technology. If you don't know anything about WPF or XAML, you may want to get a primer book to accompany this, but once you're up to speed on the basics, this book will take you to the next step of getting your Silverlight applications talking to a variety of services in a variety of ways. For me, the chapters on using REST services and ADO.NET Data Services (Astoria) were invaluable in getting my application going. If you want to learn how to effectively use Silverlight in a data-based application, you'll definitely find some useful information here.

Brian Peek
24 February, 2009

Solid material

Good book, a bit slow at times (author reiterates points a little too often - thus the 4 stars), but other wise good material. This information on Silverlight is currently not compiled into any one location right now. If you're looking for nuts and bolts info on how Silverlight talks to servers, this is your best option. Unfortunately, there is not any info on how Silverlight uses sockets, which I feel belongs in this book.

Daniel
20 February, 2009

Fantastic reference for developing Silverlight Biz Apps

If you are looking to build a business-focused application with Silverlight, chances are you are going to need to access data of some sort. This book is the best one I have found to address this aspect of Silverlight development.

Every method of data access currently available in Silverlight is covered here: LINQ, REST, WCF and more.

I read the book cover-to-cover, but I think it will serve best as a reference guide while developing line-of-business apps with Silverlight. Most of what you see written about Silverlight focuses on shiny UIs. This book gives you what you really need to build real applications.

Alvin Ashcraft
01 February, 2009

FIRING THE SILVERLIGHT 2 BULLET!!

Are you a developer who is interested in developing data-driven applications or who communicates with web services with Silverlight 2? If you are, then this book is for you. Author John Papa, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that focuses on planning and developing applications that present data, save data, and manipulate data with Silverlight 2.

Papa, begins by covering the steps to develop applications with Silverlight 2 and explains the various tools and their purposes. Then, the author discusses different ways to use data binding with XAML and with .NET code in Silverlight 2. Next, he demonstrates situations in which different binding modes can be most beneficial when used with objects and controls. The author also explores various techniques for binding and presenting lists of data in list-based controls. He continues by demonstrating how to communicate between Silverlight 2 applications and WCF services--both custom and from third parties. Then, the author shows you how to send and retrieve custom domain entities filled from ADO.NET-driven data mappers in the middle tier, and expose them through WCF contracts and serialization techniques. Next, he discusses how to consume and present data retrieved from REST services and manipulate it using LINQ to XML. The author continues by demonstrating how to send and receive data using the RESTful API exposed by the Amazon E-Commerce service. He also discusses how to build a RESTful service with which Silverlight 2 applications can communicate. Then, the author explains issues with consuming syndicated feeds from Silverlight 2 applications and how to overcome them. Finally. the author demonstrates how ADO.NET Data Services is uniquely qualified to pass data to and from Silverlight 2 applications using REST-style web services.

This most excellent book arms the reader with the knowledge to build visually and functionally robust applications with Silverlight 2. Most importantly though, this great book solves a number of problems that developers frequently encounter.

John R. Vacca
26 January, 2009

Required Reference for any Silverlight Developer

As one who interacts with Silverlight beginners and experts on a daily basis, I will tell you that the #1 questions are always with regard to accessing information (data) from Silverlight. This book covers all the basics and the advanced for anyone to really understand. Providing samples in both C# and Visual Basic, John does a great job providing the information you need to be successful.

This should be required reading/reference for ANY Silverlight developer.

Tim Heuer
23 January, 2009

Great guide to developing business apps in Silverlight

This book contains everything you need to know about developing business apps in the Silverlight world. The first few chapters introduce you to using Silverlight and cover basic data binding techniques, notifications using ObservableCollections, and converters. Afterwards you'll learn how to communicate over the net to pull data using web services (ASMX), WCF, and REST. This is critical information to those who want to communicate to a database because there are some limitations (all described in the book). To top it off, there's also a chapter on using ADO.NET data services which is probably the easiest way to send and receive data using the Entity Framework.

The author also has a few chapters that make use of the techniques given. In one chapter he creates a Silverlight app which acts as a store front-end for searching and buying books (via shopping cart) on Amazon. The app communicates with Amazon through REST, and the author explains everything needed to do this.

Overall, I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to write Silverlight applications that need to communicate with data using WCF, ASMX, REST or ADO.NET data services. The book is very well written, and easy to understand.

Giovanni
21 January, 2009

The SL2 book every business developer must own!

This book does an excellent job of bringing it all together. It is very practical in that it reads like an extended tutorial. The chapters 2-4 will introduce you to XAML binding and all the wonderful things it brings us. The rest of the book really build on this showing you how to connect and bind data from all kinds of services.

Prior to reading this book, I was not all that well-versed in WCF. After reading it I feel very comfortable with using WCF to build numerous styles of "web services." It also does an excellent job making you well-versed in ADO.NET Data Services (Astoria) presenting material I hadn't seen elsewhere.

This book will also give you a good foundation in LINQ to Entities/Entities Framework (as well as LINQ to SQL).

Not only that it's an easy read. You'll find yourself quickly finding reasons for using all these new technologies (Silverlight 2, Web Services, and Entities Framework).

Again, this is the book you will want to own.

Jay E. Kimble
06 January, 2009

Highly recommended for LOB app developers

Finished the book! I highly recommend this book to anyone doing (or wanting to do) LOB apps involving Silverlight 2. Ch. 5/6's treatment of SOAP apps w/ASMX&WCF was well-written. Ch. 7-9 examples - digg, Amazon, and twitter - gave good coverage of RESTful services. I skimmed over Ch. 10 - RSS/Atom - because I wanted to focus on Ch. 11 - ADO.NET Data Services and Entity Framework. I was certainly not disappointed. Overall, this is a great book! Examples of how LINQ to SQL/XML/JSON works + WCF/REST are worth the book's price.

M. Jose
26 December, 2008

Very well-written with easy to follow examples but lacks discussion of potential gotchas

While many initial books on Silverlight tended to highlight the ease with which one can create great looking animations and user interfaces, this book is focused entirely on tools and techniques for building and debugging data-bound applications with Silverlight 2 as the client. The first four chapters discuss in great detail various data binding concepts and how Silverlight 2's offerings are more limited than those available with WPF. Chapters 5 and 6 are devoted to discussions of building and consuming ASMX and SOAP-based WCF services, cross-domain policies, and new data serialization features available in .Net 3.5 SP 1; one key learning from these chapters is that Silverlight 2 only supports basicHttpBinding for SOAP-based WCF Services. The next three chapters explain how REST-based Services differ from SOAP-based Services, how to build REST-based WCF Services, and how to consume such services as well as RESTful Services available from Digg, Amazon, and Twitter using the WebClient class (a scaled down version of the full .Net version) included in the Silverlight 2 plug-in. Those chapters demonstrate how to issue GET and POST RESTful requests but only briefly describe the availability of workarounds for issuing PUT and DELETE Restful requests with no further pointers or sample code. The same chapters include demonstrations of how to consume responses formatted in XML or JSON using LINQ to XML and LINQ to JSON, respectively. The next chapter provides information on how to interact with Syndication Feeds, and the last chapter is a lengthy excellent discussion of how to use ADO.Net Data Services. Appendix A provides a Quick Reference on ADO.Net Data Services and Appendix B discusses a few HTTP Sniffing Tools that can be used for debugging Silverlight 2 applications. All code samples are in C# and VB, and can be downloaded from silverlight-data.com. Overall, I thought the book is very well-written, the code samples are easy to follow, but almost all of them only deal with happy path scenarios, with very little discussion of potential gotchas and how to deal with such potential problems.

Techie Evan
25 December, 2008