I promised myself I wouldn't buy a Windows Presentation Foundation book until it was fully baked into Visual Studio - with a real designer and freedom from angle-brackets. I know how I am - I was mutzing around with DataGrams before they became DataSets, and ObjectSpaces before they became, well, nothing. I'm an early adopter, and sometimes that's a Bad Thing when it comes to real-world projects and timelines.
But then Surface came out, and I just couldn't wait. I downloaded Expression Blend May 2 Preview and on Scott Guthrie's recommendation, bought Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed and Essential Windows Presentation Foundation.
The short review: WPF Unleashed rocks, get it. Essential WPF is decent, but not as good as Unleashed.
The longer version: Unleashed is full color- including the code samples- and this makes it much more readable. It does a good job balancing samples and content, and explaining why things in WPF work the way they do. I read Essential WPF second, and so maybe had higher expectations. I do like this Microsoft Development series (Framework Design Guidelines is a must-read for all .NET developers), but this just paled next to Unleashed, and didn't really add or explain much more.
The one criticism I have for both books is that I'd like to see more of the whiz-bang examples that makes WPF shine. Unleashed includes a sample Photo Browser app that comes close, but still lacks the 'Wow' that Surface and Silverlight demos are bringing. Some of that is a matter of design principals that fall out of the scope of a technical overview, but this raises my main fear with WPF. Putting this sort of thing in the hands of developers will often lead to trouble. I still cringe when I have to install a video card CD, since I know they've come up with their own goofy UI that will be slower and uglier than a plain WinForms UI. Some effort in these early books to urge restraint and introduce usability and design concerns could help some of us early adopters.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed
I promised myself I wouldn't buy a Windows Presentation Foundation book until it was fully baked into Visual Studio - with a real designer and freedom from angle-brackets. I know how I am - I was mutzing around with DataGrams before they became DataSets, and ObjectSpaces before they became, well, nothing. I'm an early adopter, and sometimes that's a Bad Thing when it comes to real-world projects and timelines.
But then Surface came out, and I just couldn't wait. I downloaded Expression Blend May 2 Preview and on Scott Guthrie's recommendation, bought Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed and Essential Windows Presentation Foundation.
The short review: WPF Unleashed rocks, get it. Essential WPF is decent, but not as good as Unleashed.
The longer version: Unleashed is full color- including the code samples- and this makes it much more readable. It does a good job balancing samples and content, and explaining why things in WPF work the way they do. I read Essential WPF second, and so maybe had higher expectations. I do like this Microsoft Development series (Framework Design Guidelines is a must-read for all .NET developers), but this just paled next to Unleashed, and didn't really add or explain much more.
The one criticism I have for both books is that I'd like to see more of the whiz-bang examples that makes WPF shine. Unleashed includes a sample Photo Browser app that comes close, but still lacks the 'Wow' that Surface and Silverlight demos are bringing. Some of that is a matter of design principals that fall out of the scope of a technical overview, but this raises my main fear with WPF. Putting this sort of thing in the hands of developers will often lead to trouble. I still cringe when I have to install a video card CD, since I know they've come up with their own goofy UI that will be slower and uglier than a plain WinForms UI. Some effort in these early books to urge restraint and introduce usability and design concerns could help some of us early adopters.
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