Pro WPF in C# 2008: Windows Presentation Foundation with .NET 3.5, Second Edition (Books for Professionals by Professionals)

List Price: $54.99 Discount Price: $25.50

Customer Reviews:

A great way to learn WPF [Posted on 2008-04-11]
I've bought three books about WPF, including Windows Presentation Foundation Foundation Unleashed and Silverlight 1.0 Unleashed. Matthew MacDonald's book is for developers and is what I needed. It uses Visual Studio 2008 and is up to date with current development tools. I've also read his books on ASP.NET and this is one top-notch author. I fully recommend this book.

Good so far [Posted on 2008-04-23]
The book is good so far. Only about 150 pages into the book, but so far easy to read, examples range from simple to more advanced. I will post another review upon completion.

I wish i could give it 4 star, but... [Posted on 2008-06-04]
I generally like Matthew's writing, but this one really fell short of my expectations, esp considering it's a 2nd edition (I've never read the first edition, though).

Pros:
- it gave a good overview of what WPF is all about(the underlying DirectX etc), and why we need yet another Windows GUI technology.

Cons:
- it lacks substance, each chapter mostly contains a shallow description of a "feature" of WPF, with some code snippets. The content feels more like a showoff of what WPF can do + some tips & tricks.

- there is no central theme in the book, ie. the author doesn't hold your hand and build a non-trivial app using the key features of WPF. So at the end of the book, i'm still at a loss as to how to re-write some of my Windows Forms apps in WPF.

- it's completely focused on the WPF technology, with hardly any information on the fundamentals of Computer Graphics theory and how it's related to WPF. I guess for most folks who just want to cobble togther a form with a few data bound controls in it, this prob isn't a problem. But to create commercial apps in WPF, this book is just not enough.

Saved Me Many Many Times [Posted on 2008-06-25]
I love the Petzold book Applications = Code + Markup, but it covers a subset of WPF and is out of date now. Pro WPF in C# 2008 is up-to-date, covers a much larger subset, and doesn't shy away from the hard stuff. Almost every time I turn to this book, I find either an answer or a new pointer that leads to the answer on-line. Yesterday, I found a method called TemplatedParent that is ill-covered in my other books. Today, I found IScrollInfo. Highly recommended as a well-written, comprehensive, up-to-date WPF reference for intermediate to advanced developers. For starting out, I still recommend the Petzold book, which really tries hard to build understanding.

Excellent reference but can be difficult to wade through at times [Posted on 2008-08-09]
This is the book to get if you want expert guidance on, say, how to leverage WPF features to give your user interface controls a different look and feel because the author provides plenty of substantive examples and even covers some features not documented well elsewhere. If you're looking, however, for guidance of the more "architectural" kind such as what WPF facilities and techniques will help you implement modern day variants of the Model View Controller design pattern such as MVP or MVVM, you will not find it in this book. Also, this is probably not a book that you can (or will) read from cover to cover in a few sittings because some of the scenarios covered may not be applicable to you right away in that they're fairly advanced or don't occur frequently, so be forewarned: this book can be difficult to wade through at times. But overall, an excellent reference!

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