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In the past few weeks, I have not been the most prolific blogger. In fact, I have been so busy with work and book writing that it feels like the past few months have been a very concentrated whirlwind of activities. However, the good news is that I will get a welcomed respite very soon, and am very excited to resume blogging on a regular basis. And believe me, I have tons of content on Silverlight, Windows Phone 7 development, Expression Blend, integration, developer-designer workflow, MVVM and other exciting topics!
Silverlight 4 Unleashed
Before we go on, let’s take a moment to talk about Silverlight 4 Unleashed, my new book. The great news is that it is finished! Yes I did it, this huge task is finally complete. It is a 750 pages work of love, and sometimes of pain, something that no words can start describing. I cannot wait to see some of them arrive to my home and to finally hold it in my hands!
I published an updated table of content, to give a preview of what the book contains. It is a very in-depth account of what Silverlight 4 can do, and it is the book I would like to buy if I had to do a very deep dive into Silverlight 4.
Silverlight 4 Unleashed is thought and built as an expert book, and goes much deeper than my previous book Silverlight 2 Unelashed did. The reason is simple: The foundations of Silverlight did not change, and Silverlight 3, then 4, were additional updates to this already great framework. This fact led me to decide to avoid repeating the basics in the new book, and to use Silverlight 2 Unleashed as the starting point. The editor (Sams who did a fantastic work supporting me) and I decided the following:
- We assume in Silverlight 4 Unleashed that you have the knowledge that was brought to you in Silverlight 2 Unleashed.
- But if you don’t, you do not have to buy Silverlight 2 Unleashed: We decided to provide it as a free PDF download.
I think it is a great offer, and I am thrilled that Sams decided to go along with this plan. So look out for Silverlight 4 Unleashed in stores and libraries near you, and don’t hesitate to send me your feedback!
Plans for the autumn
I have a lot of great plans for this autumn. First I am finishing a trip in Seattle, visiting the “mothership” (Identity Mine’s office in Seattle) and spending some time with friends and colleagues. It is something that I love to do from time to time: as efficient as we are working online and remotely, a face to face contact with the team a few times a year is super important.
When I go back, I have a few interesting projects to work on, both in Windows Phone 7 and Silverlight 4. These are really exciting times for us. In addition, I will speak at the Shape conference organized by Microsoft Switzerland. The topic of my talk is WCF RIA Services, but I will give it an MVVM (Model – View – ViewModel pattern) twist and show how you can leverage this great framework and this great pattern to build decoupled and maintainable business application with Silverlight 4. The Shape conference will take place on the 26th of October at the Swissotel in Zurich Oerlikon.
At TechEd Europe
Another big event is TechEd Europe in Berlin. I went to this huge conference last year for the first time and was impressed by the number of developers attending this event and eager to learn about best practices and the latest development techniques. This year, I will be present at 3 sessions:
- (Breakout session) WEB302 – Taking Advantage of Microsoft Expression Blend to Build Silverlight 4 Applications: Expression Blend is becoming more and more popular, especially with the introduction of a free version for Windows Phone 7 development. However, it is a tool that is not familiar to developers still, and maybe even a little scary. In this session, I will show what developers can do with Blend, how they can use it to make their apps look great, and how it can speed up the development time.
- (Interactive session) WEB304-IS – Your Questions on MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) Answered! MVVM (Model – View – ViewModel pattern) is more than ever a very hot topic. This pattern helps you develop decoupled, testable, maintainable and “designable” applications. In this session, we ask you to bring your questions and I will do my best to answer them! This should be an interactive discussion, an exchange of experience, and I am sure I will also learn a few tricks!
- (Panel) WEB302-IS – Silverlight Experts Roundtable: In this panel, I will be on stage with other big names of Silverlight development: Gil Cleeren and Pete Brown. I am very excited about the interactive discussion that will take place, and taking the opportunity to let the audience pick our brains and talk about our experience with Silverlight development in the past few years.
See you soon!
With these events coming up, I hope I can meet many of you soon, and am really looking forward to the interesting conversations that should follow. Make sure that you follow me on Twitter (@LBugnion), talk to me and let’s meet.
Cheers,
Laurent
