Essential Silverlight 2 Up-to-Date [Paperback]

Christian Wenz (Author)

Book Description

Series: Up-To-Date | Publication Date: May 6, 2008

Design rich Internet applications (RIAs) for the Web using Silverlight 2, Microsoft's hot runtime application. Available only as an ebook, this concise, easy-to-understand introduction provides complete step-by-step instructions for using everything Silverlight 2 has to offer, including tools for animation, vector graphics, video playback, .NET support for web services and networking, as well as LINQ, Microsoft's native data querying tool.

Essential Silverlight 2 helps you take advantage of Microsoft's cross-browser plug-in with:

• Clever ways to create interactive UIs that are more robust and easier to debug and test than what you can achieve on other platforms
• Scores of tested JavaScript and C# code examples that you can reuse in your own applications
• Expert guidance from an author who understands RIA technologies, including ASP.NET, Flash, PHP, and JavaScript

Ready to deliver a more complete Web experience? Essential Silverlight 2 offers a world of possibilities.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Christian Wenz is an author, trainer, and consultant. His main focus of working and writing is on web technologies and security. Christian has written or co-written over 50 books for various publishers. He works with both open source and closed source web technologies. This leads to the unusual situation that he has both been awarded a Microsoft MVP for ASP/ASP.NET and is listed in Zend's Who is Who of PHP. He is also listed in Mozilla's credits (about:credits) and is considered an expert in browser-agnostic JavaScript.

Apart from writing and working on web projects, Christian also frequently speaks at developer conferences around the globe that cover web technologies. Among them are 2005's Microsoft Tech Ed Europe conference (BOF session) and the 2005 Zend Conference.

Product Details

• Paperback: 212 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Lslf edition (May 6, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596519982
• ISBN-13: 978-0596519988
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,689,077 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Junior League Silverlight book, August 11, 2008

By 

Silverbust "SB" (Pittsburgh) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Essential Silverlight 2 Up-to-Date (Paperback)

This book format was terrible -- half of the book consists of blank 7x9 pages -- how do you print updates in that kind of punched hole paper -- it doesn't fit into my laser printer and I wouldn't even try to handfeed so many sheets. Index changes, table of contents changes. Topics are kid stuff, most web sites have more detail. I was very excited by the technology and very very disappointed with this book. It was a waste of money.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Book's Format as Interesting as Its Content, April 9, 2008

By 

Brett Merkey (Palm Harbor, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Essential Silverlight 2 Up-to-Date (Paperback)

§
As a person who works with multiple teams to design Web applications, keeping up with technology is essential. It becomes second nature to take an interest in any new thing that may affect your job in the future even though you (or the new technology) may not be ready for immediate implementation.

Microsoft's Silverlight is one of those new things I am talking about. Even if studying this book does not make me an expert, I know I will be ready when some boss, developer, or product manager asks me what I think Silverlight can or can not do.

If you are in the field, you know that Silverlight is a "rich Internet app" framework that some people call a "Flash killer." Whether it is a Flash killer or not, I will leave to the experts and time to tell. I do know that after going thru the initial examples, helped by Christian Wenz's downloadable code examples, I now have a more concrete idea about what Silverlight can do and how easy or hard it is to do certain tasks compared to other frameworks.

Speaking of keeping up with new things, the book's format itself is worth a note. As the editorial review above says, the pages are bound with pegs held in place by a stiff plastic cover. Since the content of the book is based on a pre-beta version of Silverlight 2, you can be sure that updates will be coming down the pike from Microsoft. The idea is that new information can be printed and easily added to the binder.

I have really gotten accustomed to the convenience of some of the O'Reilly books I have read lately where the book lies flat while I follow from the keyboard. That's why at first this binder format bothered me. It would not lie flat. But it finally came to me to snap open the plastic cover and take the pages off the pegs one by one as I progressed. This was much better.

Now I hope I am ready for those updates...
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely disliked the book format and the updates approach, May 8, 2008

By 

SPYRIDON PRANTALOS (Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Essential Silverlight 2 Up-to-Date (Paperback)

I totaly disliked the book format and the continuous updates approach. When I paid for this book nobody mentioned such a format. In fact, I would be more willing to wait until the final version was out, if I knew about it. I feel that either O'Reilly or the authors took an initiative with my money without asking me about it. I would suggest you to wait until the final version of the book comes out.