2012 - January/February
Contrary to popular opinion, rich application development is not dead. Desktop and rich application development has been around for many years now and we see no end for that style. This issue covers a number of rich application development tools including Silverlight, The Code Framework and Windows 8. Enjoy!
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Claims-Based Authentication and the Cloud
I give up! I can’t really explain how the cloud works unless I cover the topic of authentication in the cloud first. If I didn’t tackle this topic first, I could only explain boring unauthenticated applications. The issue is, for all practical purposes the authentication fit for the cloud is claims based. There is no worldwide active directory you can rely on. There is no single aspnetdb.mdf database. What’s more, there are many kinds of authentications already - Facebook, Twitter, Google, OpenID, Windows Live ID, etc.
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Seven New Features in Silverlight 5 (Plus a 3D Bonus)
The next version of Silverlight should be available by the time you read this article. The Silverlight team has followed a fast pace during the last few years, producing four versions of their framework in only thirty months. Each new version of Silverlight has been full of surprises and useful features. Version 5 is no different. Let’s look as some of the best features available in SL 5
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Working with Windows Phone User Interfaces, Part 1
Developing for Windows Phone is easy if you have been doing any XAML at all. That’s because you use Silverlight for Windows Phone development.
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CODE Framework: Writing MVVM/MVC WPF Applications
The CODE Framework is an open-source application framework by the makers of CODE Magazine. It is entirely free of charge. It covers a wide range of features that can be applied altogether or individually in an À la carte fashion. All of these features revolve around a single concept: Building advanced business applications in a productive and maintainable fashion while maintaining great application architecture. In this article, we are focusing on a subset of the CODE Framework, specifically the components used to build WPF applications using the MVVM and MVC patterns.
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The Baker’s Dozen: 13 Miscellaneous SQL Server Tips
To use a music analogy, many installments of “The Baker’s Dozen” have been like “concept albums,” where most or all of the tips work towards a big picture. Then there are times where I present a series of random tips that are largely standalone and don’t form a pattern. In this article, I’m going to present 13 random tips for SQL Server and T-SQL programming.
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Windows Phone 7 Development Using MVVM and Unit Testing
In his article, John Baird introduces Windows Phone 7 development using the Silverlight framework combined with the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) design pattern and unit testing to create maintainable, testable mobile applications. He explains Silverlight’s layout, data binding, and templating features, and emphasizes MVVM’s separation of concerns to improve code quality and enable unit testing. Baird provides practical guidance on structuring WP7 projects with Models, Views, and ViewModels, illustrating these concepts through a sample expense-tracking app. The article sets a foundation for professional WP7 development and previews further exploration of MVVM frameworks and testing tools in a follow-up.
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