Expert 2008 Business Objects tentative TOC

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15 July 2008

I get a lot of questions about Expert 2008 Business Objects as to what it will and won’t cover, so I thought I’d try and answer at least some of them in a blog post.

The book will cover CSLA .NET 3.6. Version 3.6 is the same as 3.5, but with support for CSLA Light and some .NET 3.5 SP1 features (such as the Entity Framework). And along with CSLA Light comes some interesting support for things like an async data portal and async validation rules. But please note that this book will not cover CSLA Light - that’s a book by itself, believe me!

Here’s the tentative table of contents for the book:

1.     Architecture

2.     Design

3.     Object-oriented design

4.     Supported stereotypes

5.     Stereotype templates

6.     Framework Implementation

7.     Editable Objects and Collections

8.     Data Binding

9.     Business and Validation Rules

10.   Authorization Rules

11.   N-level Undo

12.   LINQ to CSLA

13.   Persistence and the Data Portal

14.   Other Framework Features

15.   Example Business Library

16.   WPF Application

17.   Web Forms Application

18.   WCF Service Application

The items in green are complete - first draft anyway - and so you can get an idea where I am in the process.

Due to space and time constraints, this book will have three UI chapters just like the previous books. So I had to choose which interface technologies to cover - out of the myriad options available:

  • WPF
  • WPF/XBAP
  • Windows Forms
  • asmx services
  • WCF services
  • WF workflows and activities
  • ASP.NET Web Forms
  • ASP.NET MVC
  • Office/VSTO (Word, Excel, etc)
  • Console

I want to make sure to cover smart clients, web development and services. While WCF and Web Forms were easy choices (though I do like ASP.NET MVC a lot, it isn’t mainstream yet), the choice between Windows Forms and WPF was difficult. But I have to give WPF the nod, because it is a really nice technology, and it really shows off the power of CSLA .NET business objects very nicely.

My current plan is to release ebooks that specifically focus on each of the interface technologies not covered in Expert 2008 Business Objects, and some sort of book (ebook or traditional) covering CSLA Light.