Today, Sacha Barber and a few of his colleagues released an article on CodeProject about their new framework for WPF. The article appears to be a preview for their upcoming book. I looked a little closely at the article. And based on it my recommendation is that people not purchase the book. I mean it’s not even a great example of using baboons (seriously a tool tip? do you know what a baboon will do when the tooltip is hidden…you really don’t want to see the results). And the article (and book) only appears to deal with Baboon Converters which is just a tiny subset of Animal Conversion in WPF.
To me here are the core pillars of animal conversion:
- 800 Pound Gorrilas
- Elephants in the room
- Bulls in China shops
An ancillary topic would be bugs in rugs, but they are more advanced than the other three. I doubt Sacha has even considered the ramifications of implementing bugs in rugs? What about serialization (even though the bug is in the rug, you really should serialize the bug before the rug...serializing the rug first should get messy)? I mean seriously ANYBODY can handle Baboons. They're friggin baboons! Show me how you handle snakes in the grass (or worst yet on a plane) then I'll give you some credit. But don't expect me to pat you on the back for handling a conversion my 4 year old daughter can do.
I guess it's a good beginner's introduction to the concept of animal converters. But that's insulting to beginners when you think about it.
In summary, I recommend that you not buy “Learning Baboon Converters” As much as I respect Sacha…he’s a great guy. I can’t with good conscience recommend this book.