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| This is a very well done little book. Is is short and concise so there is not a lot of filler nonsense I am finding in a lot of books these days. The author does great job of getting you up and running quickly, and then goes into deeper integration topics later in the book. The book covers deploying a Silverlight application to a document library as well as linking a SharePoint module to a Silverlight RIA to deploy your xap file. It really focuses on using SharePoint and Silverlight integrated with each other. They show how to create an external content type using the SharePoint Designer to access data in a SQL database and how to use the Business Connectivity Services (BCS). This is an approach I would not have considered before reading this book. I would have just created an external web service and hit that to access the data, but my approach isn’t really integration. They show how to integrate with SharePoint workflows, how to use CAML queries, how to use the developer dashboard, and how to debug. They do a complete job of showing how to do everything with both the SharePoint 2010 Silverlight Client Object Model and the SharePoint 2010 WCF Data Services. The downloadable code is very well organized and is very usable. They have the complete projects ready to deploy. All in all I think this is a great book. If you are interested in integrating Silverlight 4 and SharePoint 2010, then this book is a must have. It will get you through the learning curve quickly and have you up and running in no time. |
Java != .NETSo what's the point? The point is that I do not believe in the Ivory Tower side of career path. I have seen a lot of motion generated by these people, but the efforts usually end with nothing accomplished, or a train wreck for someone else to clean up. I am not saying they are lazy. I have watched them work their butts off.
My first week on a particular project I was asked to be the advising architect on a Java project. I said no. The manager believed anyone with architecture in their title could architect on any project and that technology should not impact the role. I explained I was a .NET Architect and that it was not my belief, or experience, that technology did not matter. I soon found out why he believed what he believed.
That organization had an army of Ivory Tower Enterprise Architects that blindly made decisions behind closed doors about what was best for the enterprise without ever understanding the enterprise. They would buy huge applications and force them down the throats of the employees in the enterprise. The answer as to why something was needed on a project was "because we bought it, and now you have to use it".
I soon learned why the EA division was made up of Ivory Tower Enterprise Architects. It was because the CIO was an Ivory Tower CIO. With regards to technology, if an organization is made up of managers that are completely confused, it can usually be traced back to their own IT organization.
What happen to the Java project? 80 million dollars down the drain. Would have been better spent on a spare tire for the Mars Land Rover.
| Roles | Ivory Tower | In the Valley |
| In all the roles | Considers themselves artists. Likes to invent Creates new things that need to be fitted into the context in which they they are working | Considers themselves engineers. Seeks out industry standards Creates new things that are of value to the context in which they are creating and therefore fit naturally into that context |
| Developer | Use Agile to mean "we do not document" | Use Agile to mean "take full advantage of the team's collective experience" |
| Lead Developer | Acts more like a project manager | Is building the first of every type of module, and guides the team from that baseline. |
| Software Architect | Believes they can leave behind their development skills Does not believe software architecture is dependent on their knowledge of technology | Understands that keeping up with their development skills is a must. Understands software architecture requires complete understanding of the technology they are using |
| Enterprise Architect | Believes they can leave behind their development skills and architectural skills Is not involved with application level details | Understands that keeping up with their development and architectural skills are a must. Understands the details of their enterprise's applications |
| This book is a must have for anyone that wants to know what Microsoft technologies have to offer to accomplish Service Oriented Architecture. If you are a .Net Enterprise Architect, this book should not leave your side. It covers all the right ways to accomplish distributed application architecture and enterprise integration using .Net technologies. It is a book for both the beginner and the experienced. It covers SOA fundamentals in the beginning of the book as well as a history of legacy .Net distributed technologies. I enjoyed reading the history chapter. It brought back a lot of memories of COM+ and .NET remoting issues, which made me happy to be be using WCF. The book does a great job of covering WCF and WCF Extensions. After two chapters on WCF, it then covers .NET Enterprise Services Technologies. They include SQL Server, Windows Workflow, Application Blocks and Software Factories, and Biztalk Server. The book does a great job of showing why, when, and where you would consider using the technologies. There are several chapters on how to accomplish service orientation. Topics include Service Contracts, Interoperability, Coupling, Abstraction, Discoverability, Reusability and Agnostic Service Models, Service Composition and Orchestration Basics, Orchestration Patterns with Windows Workflow, and Orchestration Patterns with BizTalk Server. There also several chapters on Infrastructure and Architecture. Topics include Enterprise Service Bus, AppFabric Service Bus, SOA Security, Presentation Layers with .NET, Performance Optimization, and SOA Metrics. The book ends with several very helpful Appendices. They include an Industry Standards Reference, Service-Orientation Principles Reference, SOA Design Patterns Reference, and the Annotated SOA Manifesto. I found the coverage of topics in this book to be just at the right level for introducing them, and then showing how they fit into the .NET SOA environment. I will always have this book with me. It will not leave my side. It contains all the topics I need to consider when doing enterprise architecture. It will serve as a great one stop shop for solutions and ideas. My only disappointment was that it was in black and white. I own the SOA Design patterns book which is in full color. With the type of diagrams in these books, color does make a big difference in ease of reading and understanding them. It would have been worth paying an extra $10-15 bucks for the book in color. My other gripe is with Amazon. I had this book in hand for weeks because I ordered from the publisher before Amazon even had it available. Not sure where that went wrong, but it is no ding to the book. I am counting both of my dings against the publisher and not against the book. All in all you must buy this book if you are building applications with .NET in an enterprise environment. Even if you are building stand alone applications this book is worth reading. It has a ton of valuable information presented in a way that makes it unique to this book. |
| This book is exactly what it says it is, quick answers to common problems. Although problems is a little strong, I would say the are common implementation solutions. Data binding basics are covered in the first few chapters. Then the datagrid and dataform are covered. The book gives a great introduction to the datagrid and dataform for those who have not had time to look at them yet. Then WCF and ASMX Services, REST and WCF Data Services, and WCF RIA Services are covered. The topics are covered in enough detail to give you a good understanding of what they are for and how to use them. The book is not a reference. For example, it covers data annotations for the data form, but it does not provide a complete list of them. It does however point you to a place that does on the Microsoft site. The code samples are useful and well organized. They come with a before and after example solution so you can work through them if you want, or just open the finished product. Some of them needed converted when they were opened for the first time, but they ran fine. The main thing I didn't like about the book was the page layout. The chapters were divided into sections and the new section started with a big block of white text with a black background. It just bugged my eyes out, but I won't ding the book for that. All in all I recommend this book for anyone who wants an introduction to WCF and ASMX Services, REST and WCF Data Services, WCF RIA Services, the datagrid and dataform. This is a good book to start with. |
| I wish I had this book a year ago. It does an excellent job of describing the Reporting Services configuration steps to set up SharePoint Integration mode. It can be pretty confusing the first time. It does not have any information on the Report Viewer web parts that come with SQL Server that can be installed and used to run against a Report Manager instance. The last place we tried to set up SharePoint Integration mode we could not get it done because Kerberos had everything hosed up. We ended up just using the web parts that come with SQL Server. The book has several chapters on using Business Intelligence Design Studio (BIDS). The chapters span beginner to advanced techniques. I have been working with Reporting Services for 5 – 6 years now and have had to learn the hard way that you should plan your report projects. It may be tempting to skip the chapter on planning report projects, but don’t, there is a lot of good advice in it. The authors also include a nice chapter on advanced deployment techniques. It is nice when you can just use BIDS to deploy, but often you need more options, especially in a production environment. They also include a nice chapter on using the gauges. Nowadays everyone wants a dashboard, and throwing in a gauge or two to wow the business owners never hurts. All in all I highly recommend this book for anyone getting into using Reporting Services with SharePoint. |
| This is a pretty sweet book. There are a ton of features in Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010. This book does a great job of covering all of them that are related to Application Lifecycle Management. The book goes into enough detail to give you a good understanding of the feature they are covering. With the number of features covered to go into great detail would have made the book 5 times larger. I did not read any topic that did not have enough detail to give me a good understanding of the feature. The book is broken down into 5 parts. Architect, Developer, Tester, Team Foundation Server, and Project/Process Management. The book covers UML, using the Architecture Explorer, using Layer Diagrams, Unit Testing, Code Analysis and Code Metrics, Profi ling and Performance, Database Development/Testing/Deployment, IntelliTrace, Web Performance and Load Testing, Coded User Interface Testing, Lab Management, the Team Foundation Architecture, Version Control and Branching and Merging, Team Foundation Build, Reports, Portals, Dashboards, Workbooks, and Process Template Customizations. That is a ton of stuff!!!! The authors have a good writing style that makes the book easy to read. If you want to get to know Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010, this is a great place to start!!! |
