MVVM Unleashed
As a (relatively) early adopter of WPF and Silverlight, I am also a heavy proponent of the MVVM (or Model-View-View Model) pattern. As a consultant, I have seen a few attempts at using MVVM that bely a basic, but not full understanding of the mechanics of the pattern and how to truly leverage it. Whenever possible, I have given instruction on the pattern and demonstrated basics of how to use it. I have wanted to go deeper into the topic but haven’t had the time to dedicate to truly doing it justice.
Earlier this year, I wrote an article for MSDN magazine talking about WCF RIA Services and how to apply “best practices” with the framework. There was a lot more that I wanted to cover but couldn’t in that article because I had limited space. So I decided to pitch the topic as a book. My friend Laurent Bugnion, author of Silverlight 2 Unleashed (and its follow-up Silverlight 4 Unleashed) and all around awesome guy, put me in touch with his editor. After a few cycles of revisions to an outline that covered the topics in my article in further depth and added more topics to be covered, my editor asked if it were possible to highlight MVVM in the title somehow. I responded, “Why don’t we just write a book on MVVM?” So then I was off to create a new outline that covers MVVM including the patterns that support it and how to leverage the same core code base to move between WPF, Silverlight, and Windows Phone.
On Thursday, I received news that my proposal had been approved and will be in the Unleashed series. I’m very excited about the opportunity to really dive into the concepts of MVVM and the reasoning behind the pattern. I want to cover both the “how”s and “why”s of leveraging MVVM. As such the format is going to be interesting. Essentially, I will expose the patterns in context of the problems they are intended to solve. I’m very happy with the current layout and feel there will be a lot of content packed in. Being in the Unleashed series puts me in some serious company like Adam Nathan (WPF Unleashed), Laurent, Brennon Williams (Expression Unleashed), Pavan Podilla (WPF Control Development), and Daniel Vaughn (Windows Phone 7 Unleashed) (and those are just within the WPF/Silverlight community). I welcome the challenge to create a book that can stand proudly on the shelf – or preferably on your desk – with these other fine works. Now if you’ll excuse me…these pages aren’t going to write themselves.