Silverlight 2 in Action is a great book to get you started with Silverlight development.  At 371 pages, it’s a short book that has enough info to get you going and act as your jumping board into Silverlight.  I like the fact that each chapter is rather small but gets to the point immediately.  I also like the short code snippets and the fact that relevant code is never buried into pages of code filling.  Highly recommended for .NET devs looking for a Silverlight 2 jumpstart.

The Big Switch is an interesting book about how computing is turning into a utility.  Author Nicholas Carr compares it to the advent of the electricity grid and how it changed how we consume electricity.  I really liked the first half of the book because it focuses on that aspect.  In the second half, the author explains how the World Wide Computer is changing our lives and how it will impact us.  That portion of the book tends to be a little bit on the science fiction side.  That said, if you’re interested in Cloud Computing, the first half of The Big Switch is a must read.

Learning WCF

Author: Michele Leroux Bustamante
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN-10: 0596101627
ISBN-13: 978-0596101626
Retail Price: $44.99 US, $58.99 CDN
Publication Date: May 2007
Softcover: 582 pages
Online information: Table of contents, source code
URL: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596101626/
Book URL: http://www.thatindigogirl.com/

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a set of .NET technologies for building and running connected systems. It unifies various technologies previously available like Web Services and .NET Remoting into a single programming model and let you build Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) applications.

“Learning WCF” is a book targeted at experienced .NET developers wanting to learn WCF from scratch. In the first chapters, the author explains what services are and the whole idea behind SOA. She then guides you thru the WCF path learning about contracts, bindings, hosting, concurrency, reliability and security. You’ll find plenty of code examples and each one is explained in details. To help you apply the WCF concepts, each chapter has a lab that you can just read or experiment with by downloading the source code. The approach in these labs is a “step by step” one and often, the author guides you thru one path then backtracks and explains you a different way to accomplish the same thing. This is very useful to get a good understanding of the technology.

Even thought the title has the word “learning” in it, the book will get plenty of mileage serving as a reference book in the future and don’t think that it’s a “light” book; most of the concepts explained are advanced ones. I often had to reread complete sections not because they were poorly written but because of the vast amount of information provided.

WCF is vast and learning it is not a simple task but thanks to Michele Leroux Bustamante’s “Learning WCF”, this process is a lot simpler. High praises for “Learning WCF”.

Visual Studio Team System: Better Software Development for Agile Teams

Authors: Will Stott & James W. Newkirk
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
ISBN-10: 0321418506
ISBN-13: 978-0321418500
Retail Price: $49.99 US, $61.99 CDN
Publication Date: May 2007
Softcover: 819 pages
Online information: Table of contents, sample chapter
URL: http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321418506
Book's Website: URL: http://www.bettersoftwaredevelopment.org/

When I received “Visual Studio Team System: Better Software Development for Agile Teams”, I was very intrigued because when you see the words Agile and Team System associated, it’s usually because the agilists are bashing the product. Would the whole book be about that?

In the first chapter, you’ll first meet the OSPACS team, a fictitious development team with some serious problems. Throughout the book, the authors are using this team as a case study so you can see how Team System and Agile development can help fix the team’s problems. Next you’ll read a quick introduction to Visual Studio Team System and the Agile movement and its values.

Then the book covers various aspects like how to select the development process, version control, continuous integration, test-driven development, modeling, testing and deployment. I especially like the chapters on how to estimate, prioritize and plan agile projects because these topics are rarely covered in books.

The authors did a great job at explaining the agile concepts and how to use Team System and Team Foundation Server as tools to help you apply these concepts. Is it a book about Team System or is it a book about Agile development? If you’re looking for a Team System book, you’ll surely be disappointed because the Agile concepts get the most coverage. Is this a bad thing? Not at all except that if you’re looking at the book’s cover page, you’ll see that Visual Studio Team System is written in a large and bigger font then the word Agile so at first glance, you might think that it is a Team System book but it’s not. Again, it’s not a bad thing because the Agile coverage is very good and the use of a test case helps get things into context, adding an interesting human factor.

Who should read this book? If you’re a seasoned Agile developer, you likely won’t learn anything new about Agility and you’ll find that there is not enough Team System coverage. If you already know Team System, you’ll learn quite a lot about Agile development and you’ll likely to skip thru some of the Team System portions of the book. Team leads, developers, architects and project managers will find something of interest in this book. Finally, the fact that the authors are not zealous agilists makes it a pleasant reading.

LiveLessons: Developing Applications with Windows Workflow Foundation

Author: Brian Noyes
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
ISBN-10: 0321503139
ISBN-13: 978-0321503138
Retail Price: $69.99 US, $86.99 CDN
Publication Date: June 2007
Softcover: 62 pages + 3 hours DVD-ROM
Online information: Table of contents
URL: http://www.mylivelessons.com/
Sample chapter: http://www.youtube.com/livelessons

Programming WCF Services

Author: Juval Lowy
Publisher: O'Reilly
ISBN-10: 0596526997
ISBN-13: 978-0596526993
Retail Price: $44.99 US, $58.99 CDN
Publication Date: February 2007
Softcover: 610 pages
Online information: Table of contents, sample chapter, index
URL: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596526993/index.html

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is Microsoft unified platform for developing service-oriented (SO) applications and it is part of the .NET Framework 3.0. What does this mean? Well, Microsoft was offering various ways to create SO applications in the .NET Framework (Web services, Remoting and MSMQ) each with their own programming model. The problem was that you had to decide early which technology you would use and because the programming models were very different, you had to stick with your decision (or scratch that code and start over). WCF is the unification of the SOA technologies and it will simplify the job of the architects and developers but it also means that they have to learn a new programming model.

“Programming WCF Services” is a book targeting developers who have already used or looked at WCF and want to get a deeper understanding of the technology. Well known author and speaker Juval Lowy knowledge of WCF is undisputable: he was on the WCF strategic design review board and it shows. The amount of information crammed in this book is staggering but be warned, this is not a beginner’s book nor is this a step by step book. Each aspect of WCF is covered in details from the data contracts to the transactions. Lowy even includes WCF coding standards in one of the appendixes.

If you want to learn WCF from scratch, I would recommend “Learning WCF” by Michele Leroux Bustamante but if you want the ultimate WCF book, look no further and grab of copy of Lowy’s book. High praises for “Programming WCF Services”.

Doing Objects in Visual Basic 2005

Author: Deborah Kurata
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
ISBN-10: 0321320492
ISBN-13: 978-0321320490
Retail Price: $44.99 US, $61.99 CDN
Publication Date: February 2007
Softcover: 519 pages
Online information: Table of contents, sample chapter, source code
URL: http://www.awprofessional.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321320492&rl=1

Deborah Kurata’s name must be familiar for any VB4-5-6 developer on the planet. Her “Doing Objects” series of books were bestsellers but “Doing Objects in Visual Basic 2005” marks the first version for the .NET platform. This book is targeted at Visual Basic 6 developers and novice developers who are jumping in .NET development, have learned a little bit about VB 2005 but want to go further developing applications the right way so a little knowledge of VB 2005 is required before reading this book.

Since this is an object book, you’ll learn about Object-Oriented design in the first chapter. The second chapter covers how to design software from how to gather the requirements to the design of a dataset structure. Kurata explains how to build an application in layers so you’ll read about how to create you project and how to build the user interface layer, the business logic layer and the data access layer using the tools available in Visual Studio like the class designer.

This is a fantastic, well written book that is spot on for the targeted audience. I especially love the fact that each chapter ends with a summary and a list of additional readings. This is great if you want to further explore a topic. The “Doing Objects” title might be a little misleading. Sure you’ll learn about objects but you’ll learn more than that. The force behind this book is the fact that Kurata has gathered a set of best practices for novice developers that novice developers can understand and apply right away and that’s what make this book outstanding.  High praises for “Doing Objects in Visual Basic 2005”.

VSTO for Mere Mortals: A VBA Developer's Guide to Microsoft Office Development Using Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office

Authors: Kathleen McGrath, Paul Stubbs
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
ISBN-10: 0321426711
ISBN-13: 978-0321426710
Retail Price: $44.99 US, $55.99 CDN
Publication Date: December 2006
Softcover: 689 pages
Online information: Table of Contents, Sample chapter, Source code
URL: http://www.awprofessional.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321426711&rl=1

Traditionally, developing on the Office platform meant that you would use VBA but Microsoft released Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) a few years ago to let .NET developers use their skills to develop managed Office applications. Moving from VBA to .NET is not easy because you need to learn so much new stuff especially if you never touched .NET in any way. “VSTO for Mere Mortals” is a book targeted at VBA developers who never used .NET before.

In the first chapters, the authors explain what is VSTO and what features are available for developers. Chapter 2 and 3 introduce the Visual Studio development environment and managed code. Seasoned .NET developers will skip these chapters but they are essential for people who never used Visual Studio before. The next chapters cover everything VSTO from Word, Excel and Outlook development to Smart Tags and database development. A full chapter is devoted to new features of VSTO 2005 SE and Office 2007.

If you’re a VBA developer that wants to jump into .NET development using VSTO, look no further, this is the book for you. Experienced .NET will also find this book interesting but will skip a couple of .NET introduction chapters.

Smart Client Deployment with ClickOnce

Author: Brian Noyes
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
ISBN-10: 0321197690
ISBN-13: 978-0321197696
Retail Price: $44.99 US, $55.99 CDN
Publication Date: January 2007
Softcover: 298 pages
Online information: Table of Contents, Sample chapter
URL: http://www.awprofessional.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321197690&rl=1

Source code available from the author's Website
URL: http://www.softinsight.com/clickoncebook

When Microsoft released .NET in 2002, most enterprises switched their development platform from VB6 Windows applications to ASP.NET Web applications.  Why?  I guess that they had suffered enough in DLL Hell, deploying and maintaining COM applications.  Sure, deploying Web applications is a lot easier then deploying a “fat/smart client” on hundred of desktops but the fact is that “fat/smart clients” a more feature rich then their Web counterparts.

Microsoft realizing that, introduced a new concept in Visual Studio 2005: ClickOnce.  The concept behind ClickOnce is to make smart client deployment as easy as deploying Web applications.  With this, you get the best of both worlds.

Smart Client Deployment with ClickOnce is a book targeted at developers and architects wanting to learn more about ClickOnce.  Since a ClickOnce deployment is so easy to create, I was first intrigued that there would be enough material to fill a book.  Well, I was wrong because there are a lot of hidden capabilities in ClickOnce.  In the first part of the book, Brian Noyes explains the concepts behind Smart clients and step you thru you first ClickOnce deployment.  He then goes deeper by explaining how you can you the ClickOnce API to manage the updates yourself.  You’ll also see techniques on how to update files like databases without overwriting them.  Security is very important and a whole chapter is devoted to this.  Finally, you’ll read about deploying prerequites with the Bootstrapper and advanced topics like how to deploy COM and WPF applications with ClickOnce.

While I was evaluating if ClickOnce would fill the needs of a client of mine, this book helped me get a better understanding of ClickOnce, helped me ask the right questions and helped me do a correct proof of concept.  If you’re thinking of using ClickOnce, look no further, this is a great resource.  High praises for Smart Client Deployment with ClickOnce.

Professional Team Foundation Server

Authors: Jean-Luc David, Mickey Gousset, Erik Gunvaldson
Publisher: Wrox
ISBN-10: 0471919306
ISBN-13: 978-0471919308
Retail Price: $39.99 US, $47.99 CDN
Publication Date: November 2006
Softcover: 486 pages
Online information: Table of Contents, Sample chapter, Source code
URL: http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTitle/productCd-0471919306.html

Team Foundation Server (TFS) is a new Microsoft product designed to help development teams better manage the software development cycle. It is a huge product, just installing and configuring it is a big task because you need to deal with Windows SharePoint Services, SQL Server 2005, SQL Server Reporting Services, a data warehouse, a build server, a proxy server and of course, TFS itself. Where do you start? How do you plan such a large deployment inside your company? How the decisions that you take right now will affect you in the future?

Professional Team Foundation Server is a book that will help smooth out the installation process and help you better understand the beast that is TFS. The target audience is not the average developer; in fact, the book targets a few roles: the lead developer, the IT administrator or the person responsible to install and maintain TFS, the project manager.

Part one covers the TFS installation, how to plan for it and the maintenance so it’s IT focused. Part two covers how to create projects and what process template to select so it’s project management focused. Part three covers how to extend and customize TFS so it’s more developer focused and lastly, part four covers management.

I was very impressed by the quality of the information presented in this book. Two of the authors are Team System MVPs so they know their stuff. You’ll find lots of hard to find tips; the kind of tips you would have liked to know before doing the install. It is an invaluable book and it should be mandatory reading for anyone wanting to install, configure, support, extend and manage TFS. It is a great reference book that will help smooth out any TFS installation. High praises of Professional Team Foundation Server.

Foundations of WF: an Introduction to Windows Workflow Foundation

Author: Brian Myers
Publisher: APress
ISBN: 1590597184
Retail Price: $34.99 US, (eBook $17.50 US)
Publication Date: October 2006
Softcover: 264 pages
Online information: Table of Contents, Sample chapter, Source code
URL: http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=10172

In my quest to find a Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) book that would serve as an introduction for typical developer, I found “Foundations of WF: an Introduction to Windows Workflow Foundation” published at APress. Like its title imply, this is an introduction to WF targeted at C# or VB developers wanting to learn how to develop applications using WF and its designers. The reader will learn what is a workflow, the difference between sequential and state machine workflows, the various activities available out of the box, how to create a custom activity, how to expose a workflow as a Web service, and even a little peek at workflows in Office 2007.

Sounds good? Of course however I should point out a few problems with this book. I’ve been doing book reviews for a few years now and I must say that this book is probably the worst written book that I’ve reviewed so far. It’s that bad. Throughout the book, you’ll find step-by-step examples however the steps are written in paragraphs instead of bullets making hard to follow them. The author provides code examples in C# and VB however, instead of grouping the examples together, he repeats the same section with the same comments for both languages. On top of that you’ll find useful sentences like this one throughout the book: “Although the language is different, this class uses the same namespaces and classes as the VB .NET code did”.

I can’t believe that APress published this book in this state. Not that the content is wrong, just that it looks like a first draft and rushed to press. So be warned!

Essential Windows Workflow Foundation

Authors: Dharma Shukla, Bob Schmidt
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
ISBN: 0321399838
Retail Price: $49.99 US, $61.99 CDN
Publication Date: October 2006
Softcover: 449 pages
Online information: Table of Contents, Sample chapter
URL: http://www.awprofessional.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321399838&rl=1

I was very excited when I saw that Addison-Wesley would publish a Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) book written by two WF lead architects. Although the first attempt at writing a WF book by the WF team was a failure (see my March 2006 review of “Presenting Windows Workflow Foundation Beta Edition”), the title of this new book looked promising: Essential Windows Workflow Foundation.

For those who don’t know what WF is: Microsoft is giving away a free workflow engine that is part ot the .NET Framework 3.0. This is a bold move from Microsoft since 3rd party workflow engines usually cost around $50,000.

Essential Windows Workflow Foundation is a book targeted at experienced WF developers. Beginners should stay away from this book since it doesn’t teach any of the fundamental steps needed to learn WF. You should have developed at least one WF project before attempting learning anything from this book. Why? Because the authors go under-the-hood with code only examples. Yep, although one of the biggest benefits of workflows is the graphic representation of the business logic, you won’t find how to develop workflows using the designer with this book. Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not saying that it is a bad thing; I’m saying that it is an advanced book and that maybe its title should be Advanced Windows Workflow Foundation instead of Essential. This book will prove invaluable for any WF developer wanting to go deeper with this technology.

.NET Internationalization: The Developer's Guide to Building Global Windows and Web Applications

Author: Guy Smith-Ferrier
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
ISBN: 0321341384
Retail Price: $49.99 US, $61.99 CDN
Publication Date: August 2006
Softcover: 639 pages
Online information: Table of Contents, Sample chapter, Source Code, Errata, Updates
URL: http://www.awprofessional.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321341384&rl=1
Author's Website: http://www.dotneti18n.com/

If you never built a multilingual application, you’re in for quite a surprise because it’s not as easy as it’s sound. Building this type of software has always been a challenge but thanks for the .NET Framework, it’s easier then ever. Still, there’s much too learn. “.NET Internationalization: The Developer's Guide to Building Global Windows and Web Applications” is a book targeted at developers that want to globalize their applications. The author is specialized in globalization and it shows. His book covers everything you want to know about the subject and then more. Techniques for the .NET Framework 1.1 and 2.0 are explained in details with code examples in C#.

In the first chapters, Smith-Ferrier explains the concepts behind developing multilingual applications then goes into specifics for Windows Forms and ASP.NET. He then discusses the challenges of Middle East and East Asian cultures and also machine translation. In the last chapters, the author goes deeper and you’ll learn about creating your own cultures and building your own resource managers.

Smith-Ferrier is a very generous author; he provided the source code (available for download) for some very cool helper apps he built. The writing style is also one of the best I’ve seen in a while for a technical book.

Basically, if you’re interested in internationalization, globalization and localization on the .NET platform, this is your Bible, period. High praises for “.NET Internationalization: The Developer's Guide to Building Global Windows and Web Applications”.