Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to Silverlight. The
authors examine the installation of plug-in, SDK and the tools required to
build applications. Chapters 2 and 3 examine the creation of Silverlight
applications using XAML and Expression Blend 2. I feel chapter 3 will be a
bonus for developers as it will help them to learn Silverlight with the help of
a GUI tool. An interesting point to note is that the authors have discussed the
concepts in a step-by-step manner with lot of colored screenshots.
While chapter 4 helps you to create applications with
JavaScript and XAML, the next chapter examines the development of ASP.NET
applications using Silverlight. These chapters are highly code intensive and
will be helpful only if you have a strong understanding of Silverlight,
JavaScript and ASP.NET Ajax. Chapter 6 provides a short coverage regarding the
relationship of Silverlight and Common Language Runtime with the help of
helpful diagrams. The authors also point out a brief snapshot of one of the
upcoming Silverlight 1.1 application.
The final chapter demonstrates the creation of video player
by using some of the core features. I feel it will be highly useful for
advanced developers. Written by a team of highly experienced developers, the
book concludes with a reference documentation of Silverlight object and XAML.
Each reference starts with a short description followed by the related
properties, methods and events in tabular format. I would suggest the author to
provide relevant sample source codes for each reference since it will benefit
developers to quickly implement them on their applications.
The authors have worked hard to produce a nice documentation
of Silverlight in a short span of time. They have not only given equal
importance to the usage of GUI based tools such as Expression Blend, but also
provided good code oriented chapters. I would like to see the usage of
databases and web services in the next edition of the book. Beginners will find
it easy to grasp the concepts due to the lucid writing style.
