At work we bought two WPF books a while back in order to make sure we’re up to date on the latest development technologies. It seems to me like development books are really varying in quality and usefulness. I had started to read one of the books, “Applications = Code + Markup”, but it was quite useless in my opinion and I just couldn’t get anything out of it. In fact, it didn’t even discuss XAML until half way in (I skimmed). It was a very C# procedural approach to a cool declarative technology.
After that disappointing book, I picked up “WPF Unleashed” by Adam Nathan and immediately loved it. Not only is his approach and coverage of topics logical and helpful, but his style and examples are very readable and relevant. I also enjoy the fact that the examples are in color, which makes it much easier to read due to syntax highlighting.
I’ve learned a great deal about WPF and the author has contextual sections all over the book that “dig deeper” into various topics being covered at the time. The book does an excellent job at introducing basic concepts and then expanding on those concepts in a deep and meaningful way.
I’ll keep this book handy as a reference even after I’m done reading it as I think it serves well both as a guide to learning WPF and as a reference while working in WPF. As usual, Amazon has a great price on “WPF Unleashed” and it’s just over the free shipping mark, so pick up a copy today and see how beneficial and incredible WPF could be to your project.
Update: A new version of this excellent book has been released with updates covering WPF in .Net 4.0. We ordered this book at work, and I look forward to reading it.
Update 2: The new version has been an excellent resource for WPF. We shared it around work and everyone was pleased with how easy it was to understand.
