.NET Musings

I was fortunate enough to get a review copy of “Pro WPF in C# 2010: Windows Presentation Foundation in .NET 4”,  Matthew McDonald, Apress Publishing. I have already read almost everything Matthew has written on Smart Client (we used to call it “Windows”) development, so I was looking forward to diving into the text.  And it doesn’t disappoint.

Pro WPF is not a light read.  If it’s in the framework, Matthew covers it.  This makes it a very good reference book, but a bit daunting as a straight read.  Working through the code samples in each chapter helps to really sink in the information. The code samples (also available as a download from Apress) are well written and succinct, and do a great job illustrating the points of each chapter.

If you haven’t done WPF development, you will discover that it requires a concerted effort to become an effective resource in WPF.  (Of course, you could just go about writing Windows Forms styled apps in WPF, but that would be silly.)  “Pro WPF in C# 2010” does a great job of explaining and illustrating these differences.

If you are already experienced in WPF, but need to upgrade your skills to what’s new in .NET 4, each chapter has a highlight of what’s new in .NET 4.  (This is my favorite feature, since I have “Pro WPF in C# 2008”).  It’s a great way to quickly get detailed information on the new features without having to scour each of the chapters.

In the end, the only issue that I have with this edition is there were more typos than I expected in the new content.  Those will certainly get resolved with the next edition, but if that’s my only complaint, than I have to rate it as a “must read”.

As always,

Happy coding!