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My Next Book: Silverlight 5 in Action 50% off for a limited time

Pete Brown - 19 July 2011

Manning and I are running a nice sale on Silverlight 5 in Action. For the next 30 days, it's 50% off: the eBook, Print Book and MEAP are all on sale for my blog readers, Twitter followers, Facebook friends and even LinkedIn and Google+ friends :)

Visit http://manning.com/pbrown2 and use code svlght5a50

My goal is to make Silverlight 5 in Action the book for learning Silverlight. Many have told me that Silverlight 4 in Action filled that need for Silverlight 4, and the reviews on Amazon back that up.

I'm really excited about this release of the book. I have a couple hundred pages of brand new content for the new Silverlight 5 features, as well as new examples for some of the key areas (networking is one example) and better organization and explanations where I felt I could improve on what the previous edition had and incorporate your great feedback.

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posted by Pete Brown on Tuesday, July 19, 2011
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24 comments for “My Next Book: Silverlight 5 in Action 50% off for a limited time”

  1. Charles Exaviersays:
    Although I do believe you have done an amazing job on the last book, would you kindly explain what good is another book about a death row microsoft inmate like SIlverlight ? In case you didn't get the memo, SL will be executed mid September during BUILD.
    Too bad I liked and invested a lot in SL

    P.S. Sorry for the bitterness :(
  2. Petesays:
    @Charles

    I hear you, and know where you're coming from for sure, but Silverlight isn't dead. Version 5 will be out by the end of the year.

    And, even if it was dead, there would still be lots of people who need info on it for in-progress and upcoming projects. While Microsoft marketing does impact what people do for a living, it doesn't *control* what people use to get the job done. If it did, we wouldn't have so many windows forms and asp classic devs and windows xp users.

    Use what works.

    Pete
  3. william simons says:
    Dear pete,
    I am glad you are writing this book. Silverlight is the premier technology! It will take a least 5 years for
    the corporate world to even start believing in html 5 technology and yes it is unproven. Silverlight has proven itself
    and has reporting capabilities.
  4. Charles Exaviersays:
    Having reporting capabilities and fully support enterprise reporting are two very different things. Silverlight has yet to prove itself in large scale LOB.

    Being the main technology behind WP7 is something to be noted for sure but then again that ties its life expectancy with the success of WP7 (a whole different discussion).

    I have spend enormous amount of time with the technology and pushed it so hard within my organization and now that I have actually managed to convert management, organize teams and actually put applications on production environment at a large scale, for MSFT to come at this time with no clear announcements, leaving the entire community to speculate, causing projects to be put on hold etc is just cruel and unusual punishment.

    And the fact is that SL and WPF are indeed amazing technologies. Seriously I can't remember the last time that I had so much fun...

    @Peter
    Sorry if I sound bitter or offensive, my intention is neither, I' ll understand if that reply wont make the cut. Anyways, keep up the amazing work, cheers.
  5. jason callisonsays:
    Very excited about the book and the fifth iteration of Silverlight. Any chance the book will have some information about silverlight on the xbox?

  6. william simons says:
    I have to disagree about silverlight. Prism is a enterprise technology that is available today
    It is enterprise frily. Whre are jobs for html5 programmers!!!! NO is hiring for these jobs!!! The fact is html5 is totally unproven!!!!!
    Companies are hiring silverlight developers and wpf developers!!I TODAY Look at indeed, dice, monster, career builder
    HTML 5 may take the job of silverlight someday.It wiil take at least 5 years for corporations to believe in html 5
    Corporations are hiring silverlight developers, that's all that matters!!
    Pete your book is the best!!
  7. Arthur Dumassays:
    Thanks for the discount code Pete. I have your SL4 book and just ordered the new SL5 book. I am hopeful that the BUILD conference will not crush the hopes of Silverlight developers. I am working on a large scale electronic medical records application and Silverlight/XAML/C# is an awesome client platform compared to HTML/DOM/JavaScript.
  8. Brendansays:
    Hi Pete,
    I purchased your last book towards the end of last year, Silverlight 4 in Action, but admittedly I never got the time to read it since.
    I see it on my desk and keep meaning to commit some time to reading it.
    Should I still read it or skip it and just go for Silverlight 5 in Action?
  9. Mahesh Dhanawadesays:
    Hi Pete,

    I have all the books of Silverlight 4 including Silverlight 4 Professional and Silverlight 4 In Action.
    Silverlight 4 In Action has very clear topics. I always recommend SL4IA as training course material. Examples are very easy to understand.
    In SL5IA I will like to see something about 3D modeling and game development, Pivot Control, IIS smooth streaming, Windows Phone 7 development.
    Is there any way to order Silverlight 5 In Action book for Indian edition?
  10. Petesays:
    Thanks all!

    @Brendan

    SL5iA is a superset of what is in Silverlight 4 in Action. Both are good, but I'd recommend reading SL5iA. Of course, it won't be out 100% for several more months.

    @Mahesh

    Hmm. I'm not sure exactly how the international part works, but if I remember correctly, they take the book once it is complete and ready for publishing, which won't be for several more months. What do you mean by "Indian edition"? Forgive my ignorance, but aren't there a ton of different languages in India?

    I do plan to cover some of the topics you mentioned, but won't deal with Windows Phone (others are doing that in far more depth).
  11. bryansays:
    great deal on the book. I will have to stick it to the top of my buy list.
    I've had the HTML5 vs everything else discussion at work and I'm not convinced it is a killer of anything, it isn't meant to do everything, will still have multiple, similar, but not identical implementations in the browsers that support the "spec" and probalby won't have wide spread support for a while. It's another tool in the toolbox and used appropriately could be leveraged to great effect just like SL and Flash are being used today. Fact of the matter is MS has to have first class support for HTML5 since, like it or not HTML, has the broadest device support of any other technology out there from TV's to Phones, to computers. It's unfortunate that the marketing is making it seem like it is either or when it's not.

    Bryan
  12. DownUnderDevsays:
    Great deal on the book SOLD!,

    why are some segments of the SL community still talking about its death?

    with nokia pushing WP7 and the new SL5 3D XNA i see opportunity in the mobile gaming industry, which is growing.
    I feel that SL is still a very productive web enabled LOB platform option, etc etc etc.

    I will admit to being a silverlight fan, but i still fail to see major reason to turn away from the technology at this stage what have i missed (if anything) ?




  13. Kingsleysays:
    Hi Pete,
    Just wanted to say i am enjoying your book, a couple of places made me scratch my head, but so far so good until you get to chapter 13 specifically Sections 13.3 to 13.5 some of the explainations could have been done better i will give you an example...yu never mentioned anything about "ValidationResult" yet it can return an enumeration at the same time it is also an object that takes a string? Listing 13.5 a simple custom validation
    you did not say if the ValidationResult was a class of your own making or it is a buit in .net type?

    Also i just wanted you to know that the code snippets are fine as long as they can be tested without any dependency code not listed, as some of us are sticklers and want to type in every character and see it work to see the big picture, any snippet of code added as an example but not to be typed in should be explicitly marked, other than these 2 types of issues you have the making of an amazing book, please revise these for SLin Action 5
    ps a tip for the code samples...it is better they are complete and span more pages as they help galvanize the knowledge instead of worry ing aboth those people complaining about 1000+ pages:)
  14. Petesays:
    @Kingsley

    This is great feedback, thanks. I've already rewritten the networking chapter specifically due to these problems.

    Keep in mind you can always download the source code. My (perhaps Naive) thought was that folks would use that, not try and type in all the code in the book, so I could just show the important bits.

    In general, the publisher frowns upon code listings that span more than one page, as those don't go over well with readers. The one place in that book where I had to do that was in the visual state manager section.

    I'll go back and check on the validation chapter.

    Thanks.

    Pete
  15. Petesays:
    @Kingsley

    I just checked that chapter. You're absolutely correct in that I left out information on ValidationResult. I just fixed that.

    The class is a class with a *static* Success member. You return either an error message and (optionally) a list of affected members, or ValidationResult.Success.

    Pete
  16. Josensays:
    Hi Pete, Is there introduction about barcode printing in this edition, i found i couldn't send instructions to printer in SL4 beacuse it can not make interaction with hardware in client side. Do you have any suggesstion?
    Thanks.
  17. Petesays:
    @Josen

    I don't do anything with barcode printing specifically. I recall that some folks have done this (on larger forms) just with bitmaps.

    Is there a control you're using? Is this a dedicated small-form barcode printer, or are your incorporating barcodes into larger pages?

    SL4 has COM Automation support. SL5 adds in p/invoke support. Between the two of them, you can get to almost anything.

    Pete
  18. Mesays:
    The 50% is still working, so I just bought the book!
    We also get the previous version of the book in PDF, epub and mobi. But the new version is only in PDF...isn't it possible to also get mobi files for the MEAT? Or do we have to wait until the book is 100% finished? I'd love to be able to use my Kindle...
  19. Mesays:
    The 50% is still working, so I just bought the book!
    We also get the previous version of the book in PDF, epub and mobi. But the new version is only in PDF...isn't it possible to also get mobi files for the MEAT? Or do we have to wait until the book is 100% finished? I'd love to be able to use my Kindle...
  20. mesays:
    I asked Manning about the .mobi for the MEAT books, they replied "At this time we are not able tp provide our MEAPs in mobile format.". So I guess you just have to hurry and finish your book then!

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