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Inside the April Issue of VSM

The April issue of Visual Studio Magazine will hit the Web (and most mailboxes) this Friday, and like the spring weather, the coverage in the upcoming issue is diverse.

The cover feature this month, written by Ben Day, explores a series of useful tips and practices for successful Model View View-Model (MVVM) development in Silverlight. Inside the issue, you'll find a feature by VSM Tools Editor Peter Vogel that dives into using the new Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) and how it provides solutions to authentication issues at all levels of application development.

There are some significant changes in the Language Lab section of the magazine. New this month is the Practical .NET column, by Peter Vogel. Peter has for years written the Practical ASP.NET column for VSM on the Web and (occasionally) in print. Now he's broadening his horizons with a column that explores the full gamut of managed coding challenges under the .NET Framework. His first column looks into why so few developers seem to be using LINQ, and some of the best ways to take advantage of the compelling data access technology from Microsoft. Also look for a Web version of Peter's new column to run twice each month.

The other column debuting in this issue is Mobile Corner, by Nick Randolph, which focuses on the emerging arena of Windows Phone 7 development. Nick is author of Professional Windows Phone Application Development (WROX, 2010), and his first column walks through building a YouTube search app for the Windows Phone. You'll find Nick's deep dives into WP7 development both in our pages and twice monthly on our Web site. Finally, C# Corner author Patrick Steele is hard at work, showing how you can translate C# code into expression trees to eliminate strings, standardize parameter validations and interact with other data structures.

Among our other columns and departments, look for our review of the new WebMatrix ASP.NET application development environment for non-programmers, and for Stephen Chapman's early take on how Windows 8 might impact .NET developers. Also check out Andrew Brust's thoughts on the recent MVP Summit in Redmond, and why the interaction between Microsoft and its top developers is so important to the future success of .NET development.

The weather is finally changing here in my corner of the country, and it seems that Visual Studio Magazine is doing a little changing with it. Are there specific issues or topics you'd like to see covered in a future issue of Visual Studio Magazine? Email me at [email protected] or leave a comment below.

Posted by Michael Desmond on 03/28/2011


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