Book Review: Fun with Silverlight 4 authored by Rajesh Lal

“Fun with Silverlight 4” authored by Rajesh Lal illustrates more than 100 features in Silverlight using a simple problem/solution approach. It takes one feature at a time and guides you in progressive journey where you begin by using the basic components, then by creating graphics and animations.

I am feeling Proud to be the Technical Reviewer of the book and will recommend everyone to purchase this book to keep it as reference. In this post, find my review note, link to purchase it from Amazon store and the Table of Contents. Hope, this book will help you in your day to day work.

Review of the Book

The book “Fun with Silverlight 4” authored by Rajesh Lal is a handy guide for you to find specific solutions you want to achieve in Silverlight 4. The book covers a bundle of problem statements with solutions that a beginner to experienced professional needs. All the solutions were provided with a clear explanation and huge code examples, which you will not find in any other books.

The book is divided into three sections called “Develop Silverlight Applications”, “Interact with Web” and “Advance with Media”. The first section covers Silverlight as a client side technology where you can design Rich Internet Applications using Silverlight 4. If you move forward to the second section, you will see how Silverlight interacts with the server side technologies. The third section covers the advanced feature of Silverlight. This covers about Rich Media Applications. And finally a special section for the beginners to know about the basics of Silverlight.

All the above three sections covers a set of Chapters which includes a bundle of problem statements with solutions. Code examples are well covered by the Author with detailed explanation.

The book takes an example approach for all problems and features, and illustrates with class diagrams what objects and methods are used and how the elements of a Silverlight project are created in easy to understand format.

The best part of the book is that it has a well structured index page which you can use to move forward to the particular problem statement that you are looking for. If you are a beginner, read the book as it is structured and that will be easy for you to learn Silverlight in a nice fashion.

I reviewed the book from the Technology point of view and believe me, it’s a great book for you in your day to day development requirements. I recommend this book for all the professionals whether he/she is a beginner, intermediate or experienced as this will be a great book for your reference.

Table of Contents

Here comes the “Table of Contents” from the book “Fun with Silverlight 4”:

About the Author

Rajesh Lal is passionate about Silverlight and Web technologies. He likes to take a pragmatic approach to solving problems and make extra effort to simplify complex topics. Rajesh has worked on software design and development for more than ten years and had authored multiple books on Windows Gadgets, Web Widgets and Smartphone Web development. He has a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Texas and currently lives in Mountain View, California.

Book resources: http://silverlightfun.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/rajeshlalnokia

About the Technical Reviewers

Rick Kingslan is a Senior Technical Writer for the Microsoft Office division, working on the Lync Server product line developing planning and deployment documentation for customers. Rick worked on the Lync Server 2010 resource kit, as well as the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and 2007 resource kit books.

Rick lives and works in Omaha, Ne (yes, Nebraska IS that large, flat place right between Chicago and Denver…OK, Iowa is there, too.) He is married to Sue. Rick’s blog is “Musings of a Constant Geek” at http://rkingsla.wordpress.com

Kunal Chowdhury is a Microsoft MVP (Silverlight), a Telerik MVP, a Codeproject MVP & Mentor, Speaker in various Microsoft events, Author, passionate Blogger and a Software Engineer by profession. He has a very good skill over Silverlight, LightSwitch, Windows Phone 7, C#, XAML & Blend. He shares his technical findings, tutorials in his technical blog. Follow his Blog and Facebook page to be updated on latest articles.

Technical Blog: http://www.kunal-chowdhury.com
Silverlight-Zone: http://www.silverlight-zone.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/kunal2383
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/blog.kunal2383

I have few copies of the book for my blog followers and session attendees. Stay tuned for any upcoming contests in my blog. Also, attend my technical sessions. Who knows, you can win a copy of “Fun with Silverlight 4” !!!