Programming .NET 3.5 (Paperback)

~ (Author), Alex Horovitz (Author), Liberty Jesse (Author), Horovitz Alex (Author)
Key Phrases: declarative way, data binding, label height, Setter Property, Visual Studio, Parameter Name (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

.NET 3.5 will help you create better Windows applications, build Web Services that are more powerful, implement new Workflow projects and dramatically enhance the user's experience. But it does so with what appears to be a collection of disparate technologies. In Programming .NET 3.5, bestselling author Jesse Liberty and industry expert Alex Horovitz uncover the common threads that unite the .NET 3.5 technologies, so you can benefit from the best practices and architectural patterns baked into this newest generation of Microsoft frameworks. While single-topic .NET 3.5 books delve into Windows Presentation Foundation and the other frameworks in greater detail, Programming .NET 3.5 offers a "Grand Tour" of the release that describes how the four principal technologies can be used together, with Ajax, to build modern n-tier and service-oriented applications. Developers have struggled to implement these patterns with previous versions of the .NET Framework, but this hands-on guide uses real-world examples and fully annotated source code to demonstrate how .NET 3.5 can make it easy. The concepts and technologies that this book covers include:

• XAML -- Microsoft's new XML-based markup language for UI, used with WPF Windows Presentation Foundation
  
• (WPF) -- a new presentation framework and graphics subsystem for Windows that puts Vista-like effect in your grasp
  
• Ajax Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) - a new standards-based framework that enables applications to communicate across a network using a variety of protocols
• Workflow Foundation (WF) -- framework for defining, executing, and managing workflows
  
• CardSpace -- framework for managing the identities of your user

You'll learn how to useeach of the four frameworks alone and in concert to build a series of meaningful example applications. Examples are written in C#, and all of the source code will be available for download at both the O'Reilly and the authors' site, which offers access to a free support forum. Between them, authors Jesse Liberty and Alex Horovitz have nearly forty years of experience in delivering commercial applications for companies such as Citibank, Apple, AT&T, NeXt, PBS, Ziff Davis, and dozens of smaller organizations. Their combined experience is valuable for telling the story of .NET 3.5 and how it will shorten the development life cycle for applications developers, and enhance your productivity.

About the Author

Jesse Liberty is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft in the Silverlight Development Division. His business card reads "Silverlight Geek," and he is responsible for fostering a Silverlight Developer community, primarily through Silverlight.net.

Jesse is the author of numerous books, including O'Reilly Media's Programming Silverlight 2 and the perennial best-seller Programming C# 3.0. Jesse has two decades experience as a developer, author and consultant and has been a Distinguished Software Engineer at AT&T; Software Architect for PBS/Learning Link; and Vice President at Citibank.

Alex Horovitz is Sr. Director of Enterprise Architecture & Standards at K12, Inc. where he develops enterprise applications leveraging the Model-View-Controller design pattern and re-usable Frameworks. During the 1990s he worked at both NeXT Computer and later at Apple.

Product Details

• Paperback: 476 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; illustrated edition edition (August 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 059652756X
• ISBN-13: 978-0596527563
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #62,603 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #15 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Software > Business > Workflow
  #42 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Languages & Tools > C#
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The fastest way to come up to speed?, September 18, 2008

By	William N. Coan (Hortonville, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Some programming books suffer from the Three Little Bears syndrome: they're too detailed or not detailed enough, too conceptual or not conceptual enough, too much of a tutorial or not enough of a tutorial, and so on. The authors of Programming .NET 3.5 solved this problem by establishing clear goals for their book and by combining the insights of a senior program manager at Microsoft (Jesse Liberty) with those of a chief technology officer at an application development firm (Alex Horovitz).

Programming .NET 3.5 takes an integrated approach to Windows Presentation Foundation for Windows applications, Silverlight for delivery of rich internet applications across platforms and browsers, Windows Communication Foundation for web services and service-oriented architectures, Windows Workflow Foundation, CardSpace for user-negotiated identities, and ASP.NET/AJAX for rich client applications. The book's goal is to show how these elements can leverage Model-View-Controller, n-tier, and other long-celebrated architectural patterns while augmenting object-oriented programming with new declarative programming capabilities.

The book is divided into three parts: Presentation Options, Design Patterns (characterized as "an interlude") and The Business Layer.

Presentation Options provides an excellent introduction to eXtensive Application Markup Language, the declarative syntax for desktop-based presentations. This part of the book shows how to build a rich desktop application and later a real-world web-based AJAX-enhanced application using tools that move fluidly between XAML and managed code. Additional topics include an introduction to the Microsoft AJAX library and to the rich interactivity of browser-deployed Silverlight applications.

The Interlude on Design Patterns examines how .NET 3.5 promotes the use of architectural patterns that have only been celebrated with lip service until now.

The Business Layer part of the book shows how to replace ADO.NET classes with Language Integrated Query (LINQ) and defines SOA and shows how to implement SOA with Windows Communication Foundation. Most important, this part of the book presents a complete example of a WCF application and a complete workflow application, and also shows how to apply CardSpace for establishing identity.

Liberty and Horovitz should be commended for setting and then meeting the clearly spelled out goals for their book. The book is well organized and well written, and it follows the time-honored principle of moving from the simple to the complex. Assuming you've installed .NET Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008, then this book just might be the very fastest way to bring yourself up to speed on Microsoft's latest.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource for .NET 3.5!, September 11, 2008

By	Chris Stewart (Richmond, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I just finished reading Programming .NET 3.5 from O'Reilly. The book, published in August, is an overview of the latest .NET Framework revision. You'll get an introduction to the topics that have been introduced along the way that include technology from .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, and the latest version; .NET 3.5. Also included are libraries such as ASP.NET MVC and Silverlight.

You can easily pick up this book and enjoy the introductions to technologies such as Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation, ASP.NET MVC, and Silverlight. Each of these topics are presented in a way that will be familiar to .NET developers. New developers, without experience in .NET, will be able to take a lot away from this book. It certainly will do more for the developer who already has a .NET background, no matter how brief it is.

That said, if you only pick up the book for the introduction to each technology, you'll be missing the best that this book has to offer. Unlike most technology books these days, this book explains the topics within the context of best practices and real world scenarios. For example, prior versions of ASP.NET did not promote decoupled architectures. In fact, it made it difficult to achieve them. With the technology available in .NET 3.5, modeling and implementing proper architectures is encouraged and facilitated by the framework. This book will show you how that works in .NET 3.5 and introduce you to the technologies at the same time.

I highly recommend this book. It will be on my desk for easy reference for my .NET projects in the future.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A tour of .NET 3.5, September 7, 2008

By	T. Anderson (PA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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This book is very different than most of the book I have purchased on .NET because it covers XAML, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Silverlight, Ajax, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Workflow Foundation (WF), CardSpace, as well as the industry standard patterns Microsoft has incorporated in these technologies.

None of the technologies are gone into in great depth, and I thought I would be slamming them for that, but I can't because they tell us upfront they don't do that. I also can't do that because they did a great job of making this a roller coaster ride through the .NET 3.5 Framework. Meaning they point out some really cool stuff in one part of it, and then speed off to another part of it to show off the cool stuff there.

I would suggest you have somewhat of a background with .NET 3.5. You don't have to, but it helped me because I could easily place the book's topics into the proper context.

The authors do a good job introducing some of the key patterns found in the .NET Framework. It is the same as the rest of the book, they look at one cool view of the pattern and then speed off to the next one.

The code samples shown in the book are available on line, and they are well organized and very usable.

All in all I have enjoyed reading the book. I would recommend this book to anyone who has been trying to get a grip on all the different features in .NET 3.5. They will get a cool glimpse into each area.