Customer Reviews

Microsoft Silverlight 4 Business Application Development: Beginner's Guide

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I have worked through Chapter 7 of this book. Below is what I have found.

The code listings in this book are from a previous version of Expression Blend not Expression Blend 4.0. So the explanation of the code in the book is useless as you will be looking at code generated from Expression Blend 4.0 -- if you do the exercises yourself. I would give this book 0 stars if I could.

It is clear the authors, editors, reviewers and publisher attempted to simply make more money from the previous Silverlight 3.0 version of the book by simply cut and pasting. They didn't ever bother to change the source code. The projects are in Visual Studio 2008; not Visual Studio 2010. You cannot create a Silverlight 4.0 project in VS 2008. This is not professional and not a way to build a reputation and win a loyal customer base.

For a beginner's book I think that explaining how a Silverlight Solution is structured and how the Silverlight Project relates to the web project should be explained. The examples simply state add this to the Silverlight project and add that to the web project. I would like to know why. Some of the code listed in the book go for pages. Unless you are a serious C# programmer with a thorough understanding of LINQ, you will be lost.



Microsoft Silverlight 4 Business Application Development: Beginners Guide

I want to be clear and up front: I was the Technical Reviewer for this book, so I've been excited about it for a while now. I receive NO money for working on this book. I receive NO commissions or royalties from its sales. Of course, I do want to see the book succeed, which it should easily do on its own merits. I'll try to be as objective as possible, but since I may be a little biased I understand if you take my review with a grain of salt.

This book takes a different approach to Silverlight. This is not just another reference book. Instead, the book guides you through the hands-on development of several applications and shows you how to incorporate typical features as well as some really cool not-so-typical ones. Of course the book covers entry level material, like introducing XAML and the tools you will want to use. The book has a fair mix of Visual Studio and Blend. Within just a few chapters though, you are adding media, interfacing with Bing Maps, using Isolated Storage, etc. Some of the highlights for me are Data Validation, RIA Services, Charting, and more.

I would not make this your only Silverlight book: you still need a solid reference book. That being said, I would definitely recommend this book for anyone getting started with Silverlight. The examples therein will help you accomplishing something nontrivial in a much shorter amount of time than it would take on your own.

I am about a 1/4 through the book and enjoy the book. I like the author's writing style - he seems to understand how to write to developers who are coming from different technologies like ASP.NET, WinForms, Desktop development, etc. While not everything there is to know about SL4 is covered the book does cover what seems to be important. Dare I say a good beginners guide...

One little gripe is that the link provided for the source code in the book takes you to a main page of the publisher. I've contacted the publisher to get the correct link, but have yet to get a response.

I'll try to update my review once I am finished with the book.

Hopefully the publisher gives me the correct link.

I loved it when I received it and now hate this book. I used it with VS.2010/Blend RC 4.

I loved this book, as it provides everything I need to learn a new technology quickly:
- It provides step-by-step guidance to build a website
- It creates a single, real-world website, extending it from chapter to chapter
- It is written in simple English, clear style.
- It is well suited for students/beginners
And it is refreshingly new in its mixture of Blend and Visual Studio, as it is needed in the real world.

The author's knowledge is excellent.

However it misses the final touch. Obviously the reviewer hasn't tried to program the samples himself.
- The download source code for VB.NET is missing - why do VB.NET programmers pay the full price?
- The text in the book is not closely related to the downloadable C# samples. Which sample is to be used at the start of a chapter, which in the middle is not said. You have to find out.
- The step-by-step guidance is not "air-tight", when you're lost in Expression Blend, than there is no help in finding your way back.
- The guidance is misleading sometimes, enforced by dark grey arrows in screenshots with black background - invisible when reading at night! Why not using white arrows?
- The book does not mention the required state of Blend before clicking an icon. Therefore dialogs described in the book do not appear ... you're lost again, finding your way out by trial and error. A waste of time.

My recommendation: If you want to code yourself, wait for refurbished edition with better step-by-step guidance.

Amazing book, so amazing, both in how great it is and at the same time how terrible it is.

I was really loving this book till I got to Chapter 7, then the wheels just came off. Even before then there were mistakes that I had to self correct but it was ok, since I'm a seasoned developer. But then things just went pear shaped. Once you reach the database section there's so much missing that your project will never compile, you'll waste hours scouring the net to find fixes and the like and finally by chapter 9 you'll be so frustrated you'll most likely forget about the rest of the book.

I'm really annoyed right now, this is the second book in 2 weeks I'm studying that just falls apart half way through. The first was Sketchflow for Expression Blend, great book, but the source code you need has a lot of 0 byte files that you're left with simply reading the rest of the book.

I'd love to give this book 5 stars because it's so great, yet I want to give it 1 star because of the bad editing and incomplete examples. The source code for chapter 9 is actually missing! The folder is there, but there's nothing in it.

Really, the two best books I've found on these topics (in fact I haven't found any other books on the topics) and this is what we get?

Really now

My experience of using this book is disappointing. I was familiar with chapters one through four and wanted to jump into chapter 5. The first instruction it gives is to open the CakeORamaData solution. I did find this solution in the chapter files, but the work was all completed, so there is no solution I could use to follow the instructions in the book with. My other Silverlight book gives both starter and completed solutions, the perfect approach. This might be a decent book, and others who use the book differently could possibly have a more positive experience. Unfortunately, I used about a full workday trying to figure out how to get to a place where I could just follow along with the exercise, then gave up.

As someone who had no prior experience with Silverlight/WPF, and was looking to get familiarized with the latest and greatest, I can say this book started me off in the right direction and was exactly what the title says, "Beginner's Guide". I agree with the other reviewers that portions of the code were still on Silverlight 3, so I needed to do some Googling to figure out why a line of code was not recognized (mostly a few references are different with .net/silverlight 4). I now feel comfortable with XAML and am not put off by Blend anymore. If you have no prior experience in Silverlight... this is an easy to read, short, book (not an encyclopedia like some of the other SL4 books).

First comment on amazon!
The author probably guested that it would be a good money trap to write a book quickly and to put in the title silverlight and business application. I have to say that this book is useless for a professional developer. The author just jump from basic topic to another without giving googd example. Business application is a joke. I can't believe that the publisher dares to publish such a book with such a title. They probably didn't see the fault. Finally the code is out of date. First critic and I do admit that even if it seems severe it is even not enough. This kind of book desiccate me to buy books. Pass your way ...

It started off alright but seems to get worse as I go. It seems as if they leave steps out in their "Time for Action" sections. You will have to figure out what they are yourself. This book seems to have been rushed to get out. Very poor editing. One of many: Page 26: "Specifically, we learnt the following:"

Execution here was poor. You'll find it near impossible to determine which previous chapters project goes with the next. And there are clearly some errors with regards to sample code and project naming. They should have spent more time making sure the sample code and the books contents where in sync. The publishers website has a link to Errata (apparently 2 items), but the link is currently BROKEN! Not the quality I had hoped for at all and my overall experience with this book is DISAPPOINTING!!