Did You Know That… There are excellent books on Silverlight 1.0 Programming

I must admit that I was at first skeptical about books on Silverlight 1.0 Programming for a number of reasons:

  • Silverlight 1.0 is not all that "deep" – there isn't that much to cover
  • The online documentation and supplemental information available here on Silverlight.net is extensive
  • Cognitive Dissonance: My editor and I had decided to hold off on publishing Programming Silverlight until Silverlight 2.0, strongly convinced that would be the time when there would be a need to tell a story that transcended the documentation.

          Did we get it wrong? Perhaps, considering the quality of some of these books, and how well they bring together the learning experience. 

Since I work with these folks, and more important, since my own book will no doubt compete with their next edition, I won't critique these in any detail; I urge you to read the reviews on line and to take a long look at each to make sure you find the ones that best meet your own specific needs; but I will say that each of these is worth a look:

Silverlight 1.0 Unleashed
by Adam Nathan

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Adam's book is notable for its methodical coverage, and its incredibly useful sidebars which include "Digging Deeper" and "Tip" and "Warning" sprinkled liberally throughout. Full color.  See Adam's presentation at Fire Starter

Silverlight 1.0
by Devin Rader, Jason Beres, J. Ambrose Little, Grant Hinkson

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This full color book is the only book I've found that has a quality chapter on using Expression Blend for coding Silverlight applications.

Introducing Microsoft Silverlight(TM) 1.0 (PRO-Developer)
by Laurence Moroney

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This is an extremely readable book by a very knowledgeable member of the team who  gave a great talk on Silverlight XAML at Fire Starter.

Other Books You Might Want To Consider

Here are a few other books that I think belong on the shelf of every Silverlight Programmer. If you're interested in my total list of recommendations, please see my complete recommendations page (you may want to click on Technical & Programming to skip over the other books I review) but here are a few essentials…

Programming WPF
by Chris Sells, Ian Griffiths

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This is required reading for getting ready for Silverlight 2.0, not to mention one of the best written technical books I've read.  Please see my complete review here.

If you are truly serious about .NET programming, you really want this next book handy:

Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries (Microsoft .NET Development Series)
by Krzysztof Cwalina, Brad Abrams

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Last, but certainly not least, every programmer coding in Silverlight, AJAX or any other technology that might in any way present a User Interface ought to be required to read David Platt's masterpiece:

Why Software Sucks…and What You Can Do About It
by David S. Platt

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Do not write another application without reading this book.

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About Jesse Liberty

Jesse Liberty has three decades of experience writing and delivering software projects and is the author of 2 dozen books and a couple dozen online courses. His latest book, Building APIs with .NET will be released early in 2025. Liberty is a Senior SW Engineer for CNH and he was a Senior Technical Evangelist for Microsoft, a Distinguished Software Engineer for AT&T, a VP for Information Services for Citibank and a Software Architect for PBS. He is a Microsoft MVP.
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