Once you move beyond the basics, it's important to consider how you architect applications. Effective use of binding and patterns such as MVVM (or ViewModel) is key for ensuring that your application can be both designed and tested. Along with the binding system, features such as annotations and validation help to reduce the code burden while maximizing reuse. Controls such as the DataGrid and DataForm build upon binding, annotations, and validation to make UI work a breeze.

Networking is a key component of a structured Silverlight application. If you want to access data on a server, you'll need to use a service. We'll discuss how to use the underlying networking stacks, traditional web services, sockets, and advanced services.

A key component of structure is the organization of the pages as seen by the user. The Navigation Framework enables you to integrate with browser navigation to properly handle deep linking and browser history. We wrap up this part with an extensive look at WCF RIA Services using a business application template that builds on the navigation template. RIA Services pulls together the rest of the section including networking, navigation, binding, validation, and many of the other topics.