October 2009 bookshelf

Sams Teach Yourself WPF in 24 Hours

I’m in the process of creating an application for a friend of mine who is starting his own company. He needs a little CMS system to support his business in the advertising world. He gave me a nice layout to use in the application so WPF seemed to be the best option. I jumped right in only to find that it was more complex than I first expected. After looking around what was available I decided to go for this book since it’s co-authored by Rob Eisenberg who is in charge of the Caliburn framework.

I’m just passed the first part of the book which introduces the layout containers (grid, stackpanel, wrappanel,…) and the basic containers. It already helped me getting the layout right for the application I’m writing. Also the code snippets in the book are in colour which certainly improves the readability of especially the XAML.

The Art of Unit Testing: with Examples in .NET

Though I’m convinced of TDD and unit testing in general I find it hard to apply when doing projects at work. I’m hoping this book will help me to structure my programming work around TDD and how to write good maintainable tests. The text is written in an easy to read manner and currently feels like a step by step guide on how to become a better test writer. You don’t need any prior knowledge to get started with this book. I’ve only read the first 100 pages but in my eyes it’s already a classic, go get it.

Dependecy Injection in .NET

Earlier this week you could get this one for a mere $10 via a twitter promo code. Though I’m fairly confident I know what DI is, when to use it and what the advantages are you always need to keep an eye out for any new insights or information. Have only read the first couple of pages where the problem of coupling between your components is sketched. The book is still a work in progress, but you can already get it via the Early Access Program.

Presentation: Introduction to Spring.Net

Last Thursday my boss and I gave a presentation on Spring.Net and dependency management in general. The audience mainly, if not only, consisted of students in their 2nd or 3rd year so they probably wondered what all the fuzz was about. I just hope that they will remember the concepts we introduced to them and understand that there’s more to software development than the typical three tier applications you develop in school.

If you were in the audience and have questions on the topic or presentation, feel free to contact me at: me[at]bennymichielsen[dot]be .

The first few slides are based on and contain images from a presentation by Bob Martin and is available on InfoQ. The sample which introduces AOP and has an implementation of INotifyPropertyChanged is based on a sample you find in the Examples directory when you install Spring.Net.

Keynote Presentation:

Introduction.key (730.08 kb)

PDF Version:

Introduction.pdf (1.37 mb)

Samples:

SpringSamples.zip (2.65 mb)