Customer Reviews

Pro WPF in C# 2010: Windows Presentation Foundation in .NET 4

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Excellent book. Matthew MacDonald explains things clearly and in depth. Most importantly it's packed with sample applications that you can run yourself, see working, and tinker with to confirm or correct your understanding of what's going on.

I've only got through a few chapters of this book on Kindle so far, but my impression thus far is positive. I had real trouble grasping WPF no matter how many times I tried, but this book has a thorough and patient style that is now bringing me up to speed. A few observations:
- The author frequently describes a feature, then interjects with a paragraph in the form of "It'd be really good if you could make it do this - but, you can't. Sorry." which can kill the enthusiasm for the chapter, only then following up with "And here's a better method to do it.". I find this style odd, but acceptable, and it doesn't impact on the usefulness of the book as long as you're patient.
- In the fashion described above the author injects quite a few helpful tricks that account for the limitations in the framework you'll inevitably encounter. A less comprehensive book would merely leave you hanging and allow you to believe that what you want to do isn't possible.
- I acknowledge that I was warned about this, but the illustrations leave a bit to be desired in the standard Kindle format. As is mentioned, it is optimised for large-format i.e. Kindle DX and PC screen. They are still readable, but the quality has suffered somewhat.

This is probably one of the best books on the subject, mainly because of a highly practical approach. The author clearly not only knows the subject very, he also knows how to apply it in real life which I found invaluable. If you are looking for a thorough WPF reference, look no further.

The content of this book is amazing - it takes a fair slog to get through it all but it's worth it.

It provides good exposure to all the concepts in WPF, which is crucial to understanding it well. It's much easier to follow them through this, than on MSDN.

My only gripe is with the paper quality...which is a rather poor off-white newspaper/throwaway paperback texture....so the pages are rather fragile, and don't like sweaty hands.

I just wish Amazon didn't mess around with the price all the time, as I would love to get a second copy for home use.

Not bad, from the title I had expected more C# and not so much XAML.

Useful reference for WPF in general, though.

This book is an absolute must for anyone like me, a beginner in C# and WPF. I do have a little basic knowledge of C++ so this did not come across as too alien for me. The author writes in such a clear and concise manner, that I have managed to complete my masters project within a matter of weeks of getting this book. I knew nothing of XAML but new I needed to learn it in order to have images on the screen, that responded to click events in my kinect application.
This book is massive with its 1000+ pages and I certainly will be referring to this throughout my coding career when I graduate.
Highly recommended!

This book has helped me turn round a WPF based software tool in a couple of weeks that would have taken longer and not been as good if it wasn't for this book. Although experienced in programming I knew very little about WPF and features that I might have thought beyond me were in fact shown clearly in the book to be not only possible but positively easy.

If you are starting in WPF of even if moderately this book is a 'must-have'

This is an excellent book if you are starting out or even have basic knowledge of WPF.
Extremely detailed, well explained and a all round 10 out of 10!!

Overall the book is very nice, however there are some errors in the code. I need to Google them up and need to fix it. Still I would say it is one of the best books in the market.