Designing Silverlight Business Applications: Best Practices for Using Silverlight Effectively in the Enterprise [Paperback]

If I could change one decision Microsoft has made, it would be the one they made to drop Silverlight. Silverlight is the prefect line of business application platform for the enterprise, and this book shows us how to take full advantage of it.

Although the author does an excellent job of building a case for using Silverlight over HTML5 in many scenarios, the key ingredient missing that would allow me to build Silverlight applications for my customers is support from Microsoft.

Why read this book then? Because XAML is here to stay and I don't want to skip a release. I want to stay completely current even if there is no chance of building Silverlight applications with my current customers. Microsoft not saying it is dead, is not enough for them. They need to hear it will be supported before they use it again. Since that isn't happening anytime soon, neither will a Silverlight project.

All that said, this book was a pure pleasure to read and shows us why Silverlight is absolutely, hands down, the best technology available today for enterprise LOB applications.

This book doesn't contain any fluff. After the awesome introduction there is a Getting Started chapter. I planned on skimming this but as I started skimming I found myself repeatedly pulled into the topics. I ended up reading the entire thing.

The complete list of chapters is Silverlight, Getting Started, Extensible Application Markup Language (Xaml), Advanced Xaml, The Visual State Manager, Data-Binding, Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM), The Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF), Testing, Navigation, The Service Layer, Persistence and State Management, Out of Browser Applications, Line of Business Features, and Debugging and Performance Optimization.

One of the things I really like about this book is the down to earth attitude the author has. A perfect example is his chapter on MVVM. Most books I have read take the approach of over complicating MVVM. In this book the author simplifies and does a great job of explaining the pattern.

One thing I didn't like was that some of the sample code didn't run right off the bat, and some I just gave up on. Chapter 10 Manual Navigation was an interesting chapter, but the way the application with the sample code was put together the application didn't load and could not be easily debugged. Some of the other samples included dlls from the feature pack 2 which requires Visual Studio Premium or Ultimate, so not everyone will be able to run them. A lot of them also require IIS Express. Most of the samples worked and they would all probably work if you want to take the time to get them working. I didn't get any of the To-Do samples to work which made up 12 of the 40 samples. Spent way too much time trying to.

One chapter that began with cracking me up was Line of Business Features. The author starts off with a description of a miserable picture of what the word "enterprise" paints in the eyes of the development community. He then paints a much better picture of what an enterprise line of business development environment can look like throughout the rest of the chapter. I have seen plenty of both and the picture the author paints of how it could be is absolutely achievable. Although, most enterprises I have seen don't come close to achieving it.

Developing LOB with Silverlight provides us with the opportunity to do development right. Technology absolutely plays a big part in an enterprises development environment. Where it really counts is in maintenance and enhancements. HTML (ASP.NET), CSS, and JavaScript have always produced spaghetti code nightmares in every shop I have seen use it. I know it is necessary for reach, but when you own the environments, which most enterprises do, Silverlight is the way to go. After Silverlight WPF. Microsoft is missing a huge opportunity to own the enterprise development world. They are forcing us back to two choices again, Browser spaghetti code or perceived thick client deployment headaches. Yes, the world still fears thick client deployment. They threw the baby out with the bath water when they dropped Silverlight.

So my advice? Read this book. The author does a great job of showing us what we should be doing today with LOB application architecture and development. He also brings us up to speed on the latest inner workings of XAML based development. The asynchronous model will be there in Windows 8 XAML development, so learning how to use it and other features now will help you later. The author does a great job of walk us through a the most power features Silverlight has to offer and puts them into a line of business application context.

If you thought you knew all about Silverlight, wait until you read this book. It show every nook and cranny in Silverlight in detail and with examples. It has design patterns application in order for you to create a large Silverlight enterprise business application. Simply said that I won't regret buying this book. Thanks Jeremy for all the knowledge.

Having been a Jounce user from very early days I was eagerly looking forward to this book. From his published projects and blog it is obvious that Jeremy has a keen insight into the ways to design software.
However, this book wasn't what I expected. It was much better. I had expected a very Jounce focused guide to writing MVVM silverlight applications. Jounce does not dominate and the advice and samples are applicable to many situations and frameworks.
I particularly like how concepts are developed. To take a small example, property mapping. Many times I have seen this as "the problem of mapping properties between objects is solved and the answer is 'Automapper'" That may be true but this book shows the problem as a natural part of application design and then solves the problem in a simple way. Jeremy shows how to create your own property mapper. No magic, no smoke and mirrors, just what to do and how to do it. At this point I can fully understand the nature of a solution. Then Automapper is shown and now I really get what it does. Later examples just use the tool that Jeremy has created. So, if you are a "I don't need the details just give me the easiest way" person then you can happily use Automapper for a great result. If you are a "I need to understand how it works and bordering on a 'not invented here'" person then you can do it yourself now.
The same approach is taken with inversion of control, MVVM, synchronisation, etc, etc. After reading this book you will be in a much better position to make an informed decision on how to design a small, medium or large line of business application.

This is not a beginners book. If you don't know how to work out what 'using' statements need to be added when you get a 'type or namespace name could not be found' error then this book is not for you. On the other hand, if you are past needing your hand held for every small piece of code then you will find this book and working through the samples a refreshing and enlightening experience.
I read this book in a rush over several days, typing in all the samples myself and learnt a lot. Now I need to go through it again more slowly and thoughtfully so that the higher level design advice sinks in. I am sure it will be rewarding.

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