INTRODUCTION

THIS BOOK IS AN OBVIOUS COMPILATION FROM MANY AUTHORS. When putting together the idea for this book, we thought of putting a different style of book together from the get-go. Many of the computer books on the market today are a thorough explanation of a specific area of technology tackled by one or a handful of dedicated authors. Whether the topic is C#, ASP.NET, Extensible Markup Language (XML), or Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) development, there are books that walk you through the topic from beginning to end. You can find many of these comprehensive references on the market today.

This book has been built not to be like that. Instead, we thought, “Let's bring together some of the best folks in the industry today (Microsoft MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors) and have them write a single chapter on the topic that they know best.”

Yes, these authors know a lot about .NET as a whole, but it came down to having them focus on the area that they felt was their area of love and interest—the single area they know best. In total, this book is a series of large articles put together in common areas that do indeed provide quite a bit of coverage across the large landscape of the .NET Framework, but you can find each conversation in each chapter to be held by someone that gives you the ins-and-outs of the topic that is near and dear to their hearts.

The .NET Framework is now so large that it is outright impossible to know everything that you have at your fingertips when working with it. That is also an understanding that many developers take into the building of a development team. They focus on putting together groups of individuals that, as a whole, bring a more holistic understanding of the power they have with the .NET Framework as the basis of their work.

As you start to tackle your work in the various areas of the .NET Framework, hopefully you will find this book to be a resource that serves as an advisor that you need as you work through some of the strange areas you haven't yet spent the time to completely understand.

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

This book is for the intermediate-to-experienced developer who is focused on building solutions for utilizing the .NET Framework. In this book, you can find everything from web development, to back-end development, and everything in between.

WHAT THIS BOOK COVERS

This book covers many of the core areas of the .NET Framework. It starts with coverage of the client-side by focusing on ASP.NET before moving into Silverlight. With ASP.NET, you find coverage of working with jQuery, one of the most pursued ways in which to develop web applications today, as well as how to deal with your ASP.NET applications after they are built to get the most out of them. In addition to the coverage of ASP.NET, with Silverlight you can find information on applying patterns to Silverlight using patterns such as Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM). The Silverlight coverage then moves from the client on the PC to the client on the phone. Also, when dealing with the client, you can find a chapter that discusses how to bridge the world of designers and developers.

Moving from client-side development work, the next chapters of the book cover communication technologies such as the WCF, as well as some of the best means to secure your communications using the Windows Identity Foundation (WIF). From there, specific communication protocols such as REST and OData are covered. Another great chapter focuses on the .NET Task Parallel Library.

The next set of chapters cover some key topics that include using Windows Workflow and WPF data binding. Then, the final chapters cover aspects of your development life cycle, including working with user stories and developing with unit testing.

Overall, a tremendous amount is covered in this book, and each chapter provides a dedicated look at what you need to know to succeed with the topic at hand.

WHAT YOU NEED TO USE THIS BOOK

The .NET Framework 4 runs on Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows 7, and the latest Windows Server 2008 R2. To write code using the .NET Framework, you need to install the .NET 4 SDK.

In addition, unless you intend to write your C# code using a text editor or some other third-party developer environment, you almost certainly want Visual Studio 2010. The full SDK is not needed to run managed code, but the .NET runtime is needed.

Also, although this book shows all its code examples in C#, you can convert many of the examples and do just the same in Visual Basic if your want.

CONVENTIONS

This book uses a number of different styles of text and layout to help differentiate among various types of information. Following are examples of the styles used, and an explanation of what they mean:

• New words being defined are shown in italics.
• Keys that you press on the keyboard, such as Ctrl and Enter, are shown in initial caps, and spelled as they appear on the keyboard.
• Filenames and folder names, file extensions, URLs, and code that appear in regular paragraph text are shown in a monospaced typeface.

A block of code that you can type as a program and run is shown on separate lines, like this:

 public static void Main()
{
   AFunc(1,2,“abc”);
}

or like this:

public static void Main()    {       AFunc(1,2,”abc”);    }

Sometimes, you see code in a mixture of styles, like this:

 // If we haven't
// set the position to invalid, and return false.
pos++;
if (pos < 4)
   return true;
else {
      pos = -1;
      return false;
}

When mixed code is shown like this, the bold code background is what you should focus on in the current example.

We demonstrate the syntactical usage of methods, properties, and so on using the following format:

SqlDependency=“database: table”

Here, the italicized parts indicate placeholder text: object references, variables, or parameter values that you need to insert.

Some of the code examples throughout the book are presented as numbered listings that have descriptive titles, like this:

Each listing is numbered (for example: 1-3) where the first number represents the chapter number, and the number following the hyphen represents a sequential number that indicates where that listing falls within the chapter. Downloadable code from the Wrox website (www.wrox.com) also uses this numbering system so that you can easily locate the examples you are looking for.

SOURCE CODE

As you work through the examples in this book, you may choose either to manually type in all the code, or to use the source code files that accompany the book. Some of the source code used in this book is available for download at www.wrox.com. When at the site, simply locate the book's title (use the Search box or one of the title lists) and click the Download Code link on the book's detail page to obtain all the available source code for the book. Code that is included on the website is highlighted by the following icon:

Listings include the filename in the title. If it is just a code snippet, you'll find the filename in a code note such as this:

Code snippet filename

After you download the code, just decompress it with your favorite compression tool. Alternatively, you can go to the main Wrox code download page at www.wrox.com/dynamic/books/download.aspx to see the code available for this book and all other Wrox books.

ERRATA

We make every effort to ensure that there are no errors in the text or in the code. However, no one is perfect, and mistakes do occur. If you find an error in one of our books, such as a spelling mistake or faulty piece of code, we would be grateful for your feedback. By sending in errata, you may save another reader hours of frustration, and at the same time, you will help us provide even higher quality information.

To find the errata page for this book, go to www.wrox.com and locate the title using the Search box or one of the title lists. Then, on the book details page, click the Book Errata link. On this page, you can view all errata that has been submitted for this book and posted by Wrox editors. A complete book list, including links to each book's errata, is also available at www.wrox.com/misc-pages/booklist.shtml.

If you don't spot “your” error on the Book Errata page, go to www.wrox.com/contact/techsupport.shtml and complete the form there to send us the error you have found. We'll check the information and, if appropriate, post a message to the book's errata page and fix the problem in subsequent editions of the book.

P2P.WROX.COM

For author and peer discussion, join the P2P forums at p2p.wrox.com. The forums are a web-based system for you to post messages relating to Wrox books and related technologies, and to interact with other readers and technology users. The forums offer a subscription feature to e-mail you topics of interest of your choosing when new posts are made to the forums. Wrox authors, editors, other industry experts, and your fellow readers are present on these forums.

At http://p2p.wrox.com, you can find a number of different forums that can help you, not only as you read this book, but also as you develop your own applications. To join the forums, just follow these steps:

1. Go to p2p.wrox.com and click the Register link.
2. Read the terms of use and click Agree.
3. Complete the required information to join, as well as any optional information you want to provide, and click Submit.
4. You will receive an e-mail with information describing how to verify your account and complete the joining process.

After you join, you can post new messages and respond to messages other users post. You can read messages at any time on the web. If you would like to have new messages from a particular forum e-mailed to you, click the Subscribe to This Forum icon by the forum name in the forum listing.

For more information about how to use the Wrox P2P, be sure to read the P2P FAQs for answers to questions about how the forum software works, as well as many common questions specific to P2P and Wrox books. To read the FAQs, click the FAQ link on any P2P page.