.NET 3.5 will help you create better Windows applications, build Web Services that are more powerful, implement new Workflow projects and dramatically enhance the user's experience. But it does so with what appears to be a collection of disparate technologies. In Programming .NET 3.5, bestselling author Jesse Liberty and industry expert Alex Horovitz uncover the common threads that unite the .NET 3.5 technologies, so you can benefit from the best practices and architectural patterns baked into this newest generation of Microsoft frameworks.

While single-topic .NET 3.5 books delve into Windows Presentation Foundation and the other frameworks in greater detail, Programming .NET 3.5 offers a "Grand Tour" of the release that describes how the four principal technologies can be used together, with Ajax, to build modern n-tier and service-oriented applications. Developers have struggled to implement these patterns with previous versions of the .NET Framework, but this hands-on guide uses real-world examples and fully annotated source code to demonstrate how .NET 3.5 can make it easy.

The concepts and technologies that this book covers include:

• XAML - Microsoft's new XML-based markup language for UI, used with WPF
• Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) - a new presentation framework and graphics subsystem for Windows that puts Vista-like effect in your grasp
• Ajax
• Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) - a new standards-based framework that enables applications to communicate across a network using a variety of protocols
• Workflow Foundation (WF) - framework for defining, executing, and managing workflows
• CardSpace - framework for managing the identities of your users

You'll learn how to use each of the four frameworks alone and in concert to build a series of meaningful example applications. Examples are written in C#, and all of the source code will be available for download at both the O'Reilly and the authors' site, which offers access to a free support forum.

Between them, authors Jesse Liberty and Alex Horovitz have nearly forty years of experience in delivering commercial applications for companies such as Citibank, Apple, AT&T, NeXt, PBS, Ziff Davis, and dozens of smaller organizations. Their combined experience is valuable for telling the story of .NET 3.5 and how it will shorten the development life cycle for applications developers, and enhance your productivity.