Book review: Blazor WebAssembly by Example: A project-based guide to building web apps with .NET, Blazor WebAssembly, and C#

I recently got my hands on a pre-release copy of Blazor WebAssembly by Example (linked below) by Toi B. Wright. As I've previously been quite biased towards Blazor Server, I appreciated reading about the merits of BWA, such as using it as a conduit to Progressive Web Applications and using PWAs as a means to publish your web application to app stores, like Starbucks, Uber and Spotify have done.

The book does not go into how to publish your application, but teaches you about the PWA manifest and service workers as it discusses JavaScript interoperability.

Another thing I appreciated about the book, was the way it set expectations in its preface. Toi outlines what her book covers, chapter by chapter, giving you a sense of what you're about to learn. 

Speaking of the preface, however; in the section Who this book is for, it said something I didn't recognize throughout the book:

This book is for experienced web developers who are tired of constantly learning the latest new JavaScript framework and want to leverage their experience with .NET and C# to build web applications that can run anywhere. 

Chapter 5, for example, explains concepts such as JSON, URL, DOM, HTML which experienced web developers already understand. Chapter 8 explains the GET, POST, PUT, DELETE verbs; again something an experienced web developer would already know. 

Blazor WebAssembly by Example introduces Blazor as a Single Page Application framework, introduces its hosting models and explains what Web Assembly is. It then guides you through a series of projects. Because each of the project chapters are independent, the book contains a lot of repetition if you are reading it from start to finish.

I liked that Toi, for each project, had an estimated completion time and that she'd taken the time to wrap each project up with a summary and a set of questions for you to answer, to make sure you'd absorbed her teachings.

If you'd like to get your hands on the book, it's available from Amazon!


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