MIX 2011: Deep Dive MVVM

This session was delivered by Laurent Bugnion, the creator of MVVM Light.

In this session Laurent talked about advanced MVVM topics that every WPF/SL developer face sooner or later.

Laurent used a demo application an showed how to solve some common issues.

For example, how can one share view-models between several different platforms (Silverlight / WP7), short answer: add shared files as links.

Also discussed: what strategy should be used to create view-models and exposes them. Short answer: Either create them in advance and expose them as properties or generate them on the fly, this is of course scenario-dependent.

Laurent also discussed the ancient MVVM question of how can one open a dialog from the view-model (short answer: IDialogService), or navigate from the view-model (S.A.: INavigationService) or invoking animations from the view-model (S.A.: States + Behaviors).

Finally Laurent discussed some common issues when unit-testing view-models.

All in all, it was an excellent lecture. It’s always nice to see top developers struggles with the same issues you face on the everyday. And if you have the same solution that’s also something..

That’s it for now,
Arik Poznanski.