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.

Book impression – C# in Depth

I’m calling this an impression, since I have no idea what kind of stuff I have to put in here to justify calling it a review.

The other day I finished reading C# in Depth by Jon Skeet, one of those people with such a deep understanding of how stuff works that you just have to admire them. Small disclaimer; Jon replied to a newsgroup post of mine a few years back and turned out to be a very helpful and friendly guy. So I might be a bit biased.

The title of the book is no lie; We’re really going in depth here. Not through the whole language, mind you, “just” the improvements in version 2 and 3 of the C# language itself (which is versioned separately from the .Net framework). That means we get a lot of information on delegates/lambdas, expression trees, and other would-be headache-inducing low-level (at least from my viewpoint) programming constructs.

Then again, I guess you could point out what a nerd I am when I admit that I read part of this book on the beach in Alicante (Spain) during my summer vacation.

I have read quite a few programming books, from basic C introductions to relatively complex stuff on a diverse range of topics. However, I must say that no book has ever triggered the “coding itch” quite as bad as this one, and while I am by no means any less of an amateur programmer now than I was before, I feel that I have a deeper understanding of a lot of what the book explains, and I have also been inspired to take my understanding of the language further; If only every online tutorial and article were written as clearly as Jon’s book.

While I am right now plowing through Programming WPF and jQuery in Action for specific projects, next on my list is LINQ in Action – I suspect I will have an easier time grokking that one thanks to C# in Depth.

If you want to have a deeper understanding of the C# language and learn useful stuff like how to use many of the technologies that make up LINQ separately for other things, this is definately a great book. I recommend it highly!