{% img left /images/beginning-windows-8-app-dev.jpg "Beginning Windows 8 Application Development" "Beginning Windows 8 Application Development" %}

Earlier this year I decided that I wanted to get my first contact with Windows Store App/Windows8 development. I did not have a lot of time, since I want to focus on refreshing my web development skills and becoming a web-dev-wiz for my new job, so I needed something quick and light. I decided to take advantage of my ever-growing library of ebooks and start reading Beginning Windows 8 Application Development - XAML Edition by Kyle Burns. It was definitely a great initiation to Windows Store and modern application development with 300 pages of pure goodness covering:

• The Microsoft design language
• Windows Store Application types and XAML controls
• Data binding and MVVM
• IoC, Dependency Injection and Service Locator
• Service Agent Pattern, REST services and Odata
• Asynchronous programming model: async and await
• Contracts: Search, Share
• Notifications and Tiles
• Sensors, Camera and Location API
• The Windows Store

The book doesn’t go very much in depth in any of the topics, but it gives a very good overview of the windows store application development experience and a lot of interesting exercises illustrating each feature to get you started. The image below, for instance, is a Netflix movie browser that consumes and OData web service.

So, putting Windows 8 in pause. Web dev! Here I come! :)

P.S. As usual, you can find my test projects at GitHub.