Visual Studio 2013 and .NET 4.5 Expert Cookbook – Book Review

Packt Publishing released a new title named, Visual Studio 2013 and .NET 4.5 Expert Cookbook  authored by Abhishek Sur. I  received a free copy of this book from the author and agreed to read the book and write the review.

As the title says, this book turned out to be a nice and detailed collection of  insights on various powerful capabilities of Visual Studio 2013 and .NET 4.5.  The approach of the book made it very easy to follow, learn as it takes you through the insides of each topic  with – what, why, how and so on. This book is written in the form of recipes with step-by-step guide on every topic and they are really easy to understand and to deal with complex software problems.

This book starts with few handy tips of debugging, then covers WCF 4.5,  tips on Windows Phone 8, Working with Team Foundation Server etc.  This book also covers Testing application using Visual Studio, MEF, T4 templates and ends with some nice touch up on Azure.

What this book covers

Chapter 1 : A Guide to Debugging with Visual Studio

This chapters covers some really handy tips on debugging in Visual Studio. In one side it covers topic such as advanced breakpoints, dealing with DataTips, on the other hands it talks about Multithread debugging, debugging program using framework library source. And of course, it covers one of my favorite topic – Intellitrace debugging.

Chapter 2: Enhancements to WCF 4.5

You will get to know about most of the common problems and possible solution that a developer needs to know on WCF 4.5. It also gives a clear understanding on all the new features that come along with new releases. My favorite recipe from this chapter was “Creating a WCF service using the Open Data Protocol standards” – while this is a common topic, the way it was explained is very nice.

Chapter 3: Building a Touch-sensitive Device Application Using Windows Phone 8

This chapter provides a quick introduction on Windows Phone application development. It starts with “Building your first Windows Phone 8 Application following the MVVM Pattern”, and take you through till working with Notification. This chapter also talk about using Launchers and Choosers in Windows Phone.

Chapter 4: Working with Team Foundation Server

Another Important topic, and every developer should be knowing it. This chapter  deals with the source control functionality using Visual Studio ALM. It takes you trough creating a project, hosting it on TFS, Creating TFS Schedule job and creating / merging branches.

Chapter 5: Testing Applications Using Visual Studio 2013

Testing is one of the most important parts of any development process cycle. Visual Studio provides a set of tools and utility to test your application. This  chapter provides a deeper insight on testing a full-fledged application, enabling you to write unit tests quickly in easy steps . This also covers  working with the Fake Assembly and Coded UI Testing.

Chapter 6: Extending the Visual Studio IDE

This chapter talks about extensibility points that can be used to enhance Visual Studio and also to enhance or customize the overall experience of the IDE best suited for your development.  This shows how you can create T4 Template in Visual Studio to help your code generation, also covers developing MEF components to plug.

Chapter 7: Understanding Cloud Computing with Windows Azure

The final chapter demonstrates the  implementation of cloud computing, enabling you to quickly adapt Azure in your own solution in easy steps. This starts with using various storage option in Azure and covers topic such as creating deploying services , SQL Azure, Working with HDInsight (Hadoop) etc.

My Thoughts

•  Very nice and in depth discussion of almost all important concepts.
• Each chapter is very well through out and steps you through the details.
• Concepts are  written clearly and explained nicely with diagram, screen shots and annotation.
• Easy to learn and grab things. Clearly written with very simple language and examples.

Book URL :

Amazon : http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Studio-2013-Expert-Cookbook/dp/1849689725

Packt Publisher: http://bit.ly/1yTZDau

 

Disclosure Note: The book was provided to me free by the Author to read and review. This is my own review. Neither the publisher nor the author has seen it before I published it, nor prompted me or influence me in any way.