Book impression – Programming WPF

So, I was a complete newbie when it came to WPF, but because of Sloth and other applications, I was curious about what this was, as I must admit that UI programming in Windows has been a serious annoyance. Perhaps that’s the way it has to be when you come from a background of Amiga programming, with som web stuff thrown in for good measure.

I think I can safely say that I now have a pretty good grasp of how I can use WPF for creating better experiences for the users of my software. There are a lot of things I can do now that I couldn’t before, and the whole layout model makes a lot more sense. Declarative programming is definately the way to go when it comes to GUI programming, IMHO.

So, what about the book? Well, like many programming books, it’s hard to just read it without a keyboard and a compiler nearby. You want to try out the stuff as you go along, and the book rightly encourages you to do so. The logical progression of things felt a little off at times, and in places it felt more like a reference book than an end-to-end learning experience. Particularly when it came to look at data binding, I must admit I struggled a bit; Their explanations were very good, but I left those chapters feeling like the authors should have given more attention to databinding towards CLR objects; After all, WPF representing the presentation layer, I would expect most non-trivial applications to have some model data to show; It won’t all be created as part of the XAML.

Other than small gripes like this, I feel like I have a pretty good idea of the things you can do with WPF. Of course it doesn’t touch on features of .Net 3.5 Sp1 such as the possibilities of creating grid views (the book came out long before Sp1), so while this is not the fault of the authors, if you want to learn about the new features of Sp1, you have to look elsewhere.

So, is this brick worth reading through? If you’re stuck with WinForms and want a better way to do things, go for it! There is a lot you can do with WPF that would be very hard with the old ways, and I for one believe that WPF represents the future of UI programming. I will surely use it for my coming client applications, and I will keep this book nearby as a handy reference.

My copy of the book is “Programming WPF, Second Edition”. It is published by O’Reilly, and authored by Chris Sells and Ian Griffiths.