Building Windows 8 Apps from the Ground Up

I want my money - and time - back!

Let me start by saying that I'm not one to review a book badly. Let me follow that by saying that if the option existed to give this book zero stars, I would have. (This review is based on the electronic version of this book. The details say the book is 388 pages long - it was actually 208.) The description of this book is highly misleading: "This book is ideal for anyone with a little programming knowledge (basic HTML and CSS is all you'll need) who want to start creating Windows 8 apps. This book will walk you through everything you need to know in a results-oriented way and ensure your first Windows 8 apps built on firm foundations that you can be proud of." This book is all theory. The code snippets are typically 5 to 10 lines of code with no details about how or where to use them. If you don't already know how to build a Windows application in Visual Studio, don't expect to learn anything to help you here. The editing also leaves a lot to be desired (reread the quote above, taken from the description here on Amazon, to get an example of the editing quality). A better description might have been "this book is a high-level overview of the steps you should consider when writing a Windows 8.1 app". It does cover some information: what the Windows Store standards are, the importance of localizing your app, that there are UI guidelines, that you can develop in multiple languages, that an application has a different life-cycle on Windows 8.1 than in previous versions of Windows, that you can tie into cloud storage, and that you need to get your app approved for release - but all of these things are covered from a "50,000 foot view". There's no meat. For example, chapter 6: "Start Up Your App" starts with this paragraph: "The main objective of this book is to teach you how to create a Windows 8.1 application with the tools and languages (C# and VB) offered by Microsoft. After the previous five chapters where we explained the required basic concepts to entry in the p...