I had the opportunity to give an online presentation today (download it here) for the LinkedIn .NET User Group (LIDNUG) about how the MVVM pattern can be integrated into Silverlight applications. Thanks to everyone who attended! MVVM is one of those topics that I really enjoy talking about since we use it everyday at my company with the applications we’re building for customers. It’s one of those patterns that can really promote code re-use, enhance testability and minimize maintenance once you jump into it and take the time to learn how it works.

For those that didn’t make it to the presentation, I’ve included the slides and code in this post (download below). Topics covered in the slides and code include:

• The benefits of using the MVVM Pattern
• The Role of a ViewModel class
• Creating a ViewModelBase class for common functionality
• Creating a ViewModel class
• Using a Service Agent class
• Adding commanding into a Silverlight application
• Using commanding with non-ButtonBase controls
• The role of messaging
• MVVM Frameworks

A couple rules I covered in the talk are shown next. I think it’s really important for people getting started with MVVM to keep these in mind. If someone tells you there’s only 1 way to implement the MVVM pattern with Silverlight applications they’re just plain wrong. It’s a gray area but there are certainly best practices you can follow which I tried to highlight in the presentation.

The code and slides from the presentation can be downloaded below and the presentation itself can be downloaded here. Thanks to LIDNUG for the opportunity to present to the group and to everyone who attended.

MVVM Demos

If you or your company is interested in training, consulting or mentoring on Silverlight 4 or other .NET technologies please visit http://www.thewahlingroup.com for more information. We’ve provided training, consulting and mentoring services to some of the largest companies in the world and would enjoy sharing our knowledge and real-world lessons learned with you.