Windows Apps: Best Practices & Patterns (C#/WPF/LINQ)

Question

i just graduated from a polytechnic where i was taught quite basic programming (at least in my opinion, like VB Calculators and such)

so now in my current job, i feel that that's not enuf. i am wondering from my basic foundation how can i build up my skills? i am picking up C# 3.0 (4.0 seems to be out soon) WPF, LINQ

the issue that i face now is for windows applications, how can i have an app that can manage various database tables, ie. add, edit, delete, list dialogs. i dont want to have them as separate forms. i also dont want to spam everything in 1 screen.

what i like is something like outlook. where i have a accordion side navigation. then when i click something, it loads up in the main screen, maybe with closable tabs.

i was linked to MSDN Patterns & Practices when i posted something similar in MSDN. but it seems to be a big jump. i am missing alot in between.

there are patterns, MVC, and such ... whats the best for Windows app? i use MVC for my web development

Answer 1

I would advise that you read the book 'Design Patterns' by Erich Gamma et al. (Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Object-Oriented-Addison-Wesley-Professional/dp/0201633612)

Answer 2

"i am wondering from my basic foundation how can i build up my skills?" - the best way to do this is to read development blogs and join some opensource project and analyze sources of popular frameworks and tools. This will help you to grow exponentially.
About MSDN P&P, it's not good, I can not recommend you to follow them. Yes, there are many good P&P but there much more not good ones. You can't build good guidance without community responses and reviews. But most of the guidance were created in this way - somebody (a "guru") wrote it, it was published and MS said "follow it!". Thanks for gods, this starts to change during last time.
I recommend you to check out the following frameworks and blogs (the best ones from my rss feeds):
http://caliburn.codeplex.com/
http://nhforge.org/Default.aspx
http://code.google.com/p/sharp-architecture/
http://www.castleproject.org/
http://www.codeplex.com/xval
http://ayende.com/blog
http://www.lostechies.com/
http://karlshifflett.wordpress.com/
http://jeffreypalermo.com/
http://fabiomaulo.blogspot.com/
http://devlicio.us/
http://codebetter.com/

Answer 3

Try looking here: http://blogs.msdn.com/dancre/archive/2006/10/11/datamodel-view-viewmodel-pattern-series.aspx

Hope it helps :-)