Professional WPF Programming: .Net Development with the Windows Presentation Foundation

I started this book once, and had to put it down. The information was a bit overwhelming at first, and I didn't have a copy of Expression Blend or Expression Designer. I was using Expression Blend beta, Visual Studio 2005 and the .Net Framework 3.0 SDK. Many of the examples didn't work without significant and time-consuming research. Then I purchased a copy of Expression Studio and started over. The examples worked perfectly. Not only that, but the examples in the last several chapters were quite good. I think this book deserves a five star rating because it provides a good introduction to WPF.

I find it rewarding that I am the first reviewer for this book. I say this because Wiley/WROX and their authors are decent people whom do not self promote by writing their own reviews. This book is as good as any I have read on WPF technology. The authors have done a wonderful job in presenting a very difficult subject. Above all the technical material submitted in this book is intellectually sound and thus informative. Anybody wanting to understand WPF technology needs to first understand the WPF learning curve is very steep and requires a good OOP background to grasp the fundamentals. It also helps to understand the declarative nature XAML and how UI development is greatly enhanced by building .Net assemblies with a declarative interface.