BookReport
Data-Driven Services with Silverlight 2
Silverlight is a great technology with amazing possibilities. It enables developers to build powerful and rich Internet applications. Many companies have already implemented Silverlight in some of their products. Even Barack Obama s presidential inauguration was broadcast over the web using Silverlight. I have read and reviewed a few books that examine Silverlight fundamentals. But I have never read a book that provides a detailed analysis of a specific concept.
In his latest book from O Reilly, John Papa examines all the vital aspects of the creation of data-driven services with Silverlight 2. He provides detailed coverage of each concept, with associated source code that will help advanced developers build robust data-aware applications.
The book is divided into 11 chapters and is code intensive. Chapter 1 provides a nice overview of the various features of Silverlight 2, including LINQ and related aspects. Chapter 2 examines the concepts behind building data-oriented Silverlight applications by providing an outline of the scenario with and without data binding. It s a nice approach by the author to introduce a complex topic to developers.
While Chapter 3 examines different kinds of binding modes and notifications, Chapters 4 and 5 provide detailed overviews of the management of lists, templates, convertors, and Web services, as well as the concept of cross-domain policies. Papa also demonstrates the steps involved in the creation of a Silverlight-enabled Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) service. He then examines the use of LINQ to SQL, and provides brief coverage of the relationship between Silverlight and Entity Framework.
Chapter 7 delves deep in to the concept of RESTful services. The remaining chapters provide detailed coverage of consumption of Amazon s Restful services and, with the help of code samples, the procedure to work with it. You ll also learn the steps required to integrate Twitter feeds and syndication of feeds using Silverlight.
The final chapter provides a detailed overview of ADO.NET data services. The book also includes two appendixes. The first, ADO.NET Data Services Quick Reference , provides a quick reference to the various methods and enumerators included with the various namespaces of ADO.NET; the second, Silverlight 2 Debugging with HTTP Sniffing Tools , examines the various tools used for debugging Silverlight 2 applications.
Data-Driven Services with Silverlight 2 is code intensive; purchase it only if you have prior knowledge of .NET programming using Silverlight. This book will be highly useful for those developers with .NET and Silverlight programming experience who wish to master the advanced concepts of Silverlight in a quick span of time. This book targets advanced developers, but from my point of view, Papa s lucid writing style will enable these developers to understand the concepts quickly and easily.
Anand Narayanaswamy
Rating:
Title: Data-Driven Services with Silverlight 2
Author: John Papa
Publisher: O Reilly Media
ISBN: 0-596-52309-2
Web Site: oreilly.com/catalog/9780596523091/index.html
Price: US$44.99
Page Count: 366
