Customer Reviews

Professional Windows Phone 7 Application Development: Building Applications and Games Using Visual Studio, Silverlight, and XNA (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Well written and easy to understand. Learned many things even though I have previous wp dev knowledge. I recommend this book to all people who want to learn wp7 dev.

This book has been an invaluable reference as I've worked on my own WP7 applications, particularly when I want to make sure that I'm doing something the best and most appropriate way. In particular this includes the explanation of the patterns that should be used when using Silverlight's databinding model, and how you can take advantage of that with Expression Blends design time views. A lot of things through this book has taken a lot of the pain out of WP7 development for me by explaining why things should be done certain ways to avoid particular issues further down the track. High recommended for anyone who wants to do things properly.

Overall I'm satisfied with this book. It does give a good, although somewhat superficial, look at the key areas you need to know to develop windows phone 7 applications. However, having XNA as part of the title seems rather misleading for something that only gets one short 25 page chapter in a book that's really about silverlight development.

I have found the book to be a really good overview of the whole Windows Phone 7. I continually refer to it during development. It touches all areas of the phone and gives you enough background to be able to search specific areas on the net. Having said that you can use a lot of the examples as they appear in the book. I have found learning Silverlight/Expression Blend/WCF etc to be fairly hard going. The knowledge I have learn't from other books certainly helped me understand the details of this book. This is not a beginners book which was exactly what I was looking for. What I found was that after searching around the net for the best professional techniques that this book has already documented a lot of the best practices for you. In re-reading the book I have found many fine/important details that I can now use. I particularily found the Data Chaching (Chapter 16) to be helpful. This enables database apps to run off-line and then sync when the network connection comes back. I have not found any other data caching as good so far. There is not a lot on XNA but it covers the basics and I just use another specialized book for XNA. Overall this has made my professional phone development a lot easier.

Although many basic Silverlight concepts are touched on, I don't believe this is a book for those new to Silverlight. A basic understanding of WCF, MEF and some other topics will also be helpful, but not absolutely necessary, in some sections. XNA is only covered in one short chapter but it does touch on the basic concepts. Think of this "Professional" title as meaning this is an "Introduction" for professional Silverlight developers. From that perspective this is a very good intro to Windows Phone 7 development that includes platform and design principles. All the basics you need to know in order to communicate with Phone 7 hardware, software, security and data features are covered.

Excellent companion for Windows Phone 7 developers. It covers all topics necessary to create a successful application in the marketplace. I specifically like the approach in which you don't have to go through every chapter but you can just jump ahead to the specific topics you are actually interested in for your app.
It is great for Metro application development but if you are interested in XNA only you are better off getting a dedicated book for XNA. Although it covers topics it doesn't expand broadly on it.

I purchased this because I plan to build applications for WP7 and in the last months I have been working with WPF and XAML so I thought that it would be easy to learn it. The book is not for beginners if you want to learn silverlight and xaml while learning to build apps for WP7 might be hard to get it at the beginning. The book covers a lot of topics like the metro aproach, input, orientation, tiles, notification, audio, media playback, navigation,etc .

The chapters 15 and 16 are very good these chapters are about data and how to use the data binding, designing taking into account the data, the isolated storage, data caching, and other things related.

What is pretty short is the coverage about XNA...you will need another book for that.

If you are looking to build applcations using Silverlight this is a good book.

Definitely not recommended if you do not already know C# as there is NO HAND HOLDING in this book! You MUST ALREADY HAVE a sound knowledge of .NET as it is not a Dummies Guide. The book glosses through the concepts on how to create a WP7 app with code snippets and you have to do the hard yards in writing most of your own code. Use of Expression Blend and Visual Studio 2010 in relation to designing a WP7 app are both covered. If you are not sure, preview the book prior to purchasing.

I have not been happy with this book. My programming experience is 4 years. This book is too advanced for me. If you have somewhat similar experience to me you will not like this book. Instead I can recommend Microsofts own material about WP7 development, there is lot's of good stuff:

[...]

If you want a book from Amazon I recommend:

Beginning Windows Phone 7 Development (Books for Professionals by Professionals)

Which gives a good soft start:-)

I am not a professional programmer although I am looking to build applications for WP7... I didn't purchase this book but I do have other books that were missing parts I was interested in learning, i.e. Expression Blend 4 for Windows Phone 7, so I went to a book store and read this book for about 2 hours and I can wholeheartedly agree with just about every review about this book.

A comment about what one person said to the effect of "It says it is for professionals." Well, I am a professional designer and I can tell you right now I don't know what type of professional you would have to be to get the points of this book but I am going on a limb here and saying it doesn't matter... The book is that bad.

The book truly tries to gloss over just about every subject in a superficial detail about the theory and gist of what WP7 is all about... And, it tries to do it from a coder / developer / designer's perspective. Again, I am a designer and the parts I was trying to extrapolate for design purposes were non-existent.

Case in point is the Expression Blend 4 chapter. It tells you this about it... XAML is used by both EB and VS... and doing complicated animations and path design is only feasible in Blend rather than Visual Studio... <<< Seriously, that is the gist of the chapter.

Yet from all these small and non-detailed "Gists" there is a writing style that trys to convey these points in a droning on and on storybook type style of writing. Not good for a technical book / manual.

I believe I have gotten all of these points with various blog posts and video's I have watched already. Nothing new here.

Who would this book be good for? A professional coder? I honestly don't think so. The reason why is because of the writing style... There is too much going on and not any type of focusing. Yea there is a lot of code and a lot of good information but God help the soul that has to read it all to decipher what that "good" information is.

*****However, I think the author's intention was a good one and here is what I would say that could fix the book for perhaps a republish.

1. Take the story mode out of the book... It is way to much to handle.
2. Make focus a priority. Build an entire project / tutorial and as you progress make all the points you want by clear concise bullets to illustrate your points...
3. KISS Keep It Simple & Swish >...< Don't go off into realms that are your opinion or overly verbose to try and prove a point. I think developers and designers can figure out the gist of what they are looking for in an application design to get that information on their own.
4. Focus in on certian points with more emphasis and clarity. The expression 4 chapter is a prime example of this. That is a chapter that almost no current book on WP7 gives any real attention too. I am glad you gave it attention but no where enough attention as it should have had. Yes you have more expression used throughout the book but without a good basis the information is not enough. More to the point, even if I was the greatest C# VS XAML person of all time I might not have that much blend / design knowledge. How can a book possibly assume both are known.

Lastly, saying this is a "professional book" for a NEW Phone OS is a little neive don't you think? How can anyone be a professional about just yet? IMHO... that comment was more for a commenter on this forum rather than the author.

Oh and one more thing... Yea, the XNA chapter is totally inadequate.

Hope this helps and hope you come out with another book that can focus on some aspects as per what I have explained.

Thanks.