Tutorial on multi-page applications posted
Very pleased to announce that my tutorial on Multi-page applications is now available in both C# and VB and in both HTML and in PDF format.
Set Theory
It is my hope that this approach to multi-page applications will prove useful, though of course it is not the only way to approach this problem. That said, I will be leveraging this solution in a series of forthcoming videos and blog posts about the Silverlight Toolkit.
This brings up the concept of stand alone units (blog posts, videos, etc.) that also live in Modules, and then in Sets – an idea that I've been toying with for about two months.
This idea may have merit or not, but The Toolkit seems to offer a good opportunity to start down the path. The concept of Sets is to have three tiers at which developers can access information:
1. Individual Units that stand alone
2. Modules that are groups of Units but that are orthogonal to one another
3. Sets that tie some number of modules together into a coherent and comprehensive whole.
The original premise behind How Do I videos was that the developer could dip into a video without needing to have seen any other video; we've stretched this into pairs and even small groups of videos where needed, but we still believe in the original idea.
Modules provide an opportunity to have the best of both: individual stand alone units and then groups of units where the soul is greater than the hum of its parts (see Douglas Hofstadter – The Mind's I; only he could combine a pair of puns with a Spoonerism) .
Once two or more modules have been created, it is possible to imagine creating a set: a group of modules that together provide comprehensive coverage of a topic of interest; in this case, complete coverage of the Toolkit.
Key to this idea is that each unit stands on its own, with the module providing the connections between them. Similarly, each module is independent of all other modules, with the Set providing the overarching theme.
Stay tuned, as I build more units on the Toolkit, I'll create a map (or Table of Contents) and when it makes sense, I'll cluster them into Modules.
Thanks.
-j