One book I’ve been reading lately was “Visual Studio 2012 Cookbook” available from the Packt Library written by Richard Banks also Microsoft Visual Studio ALM MVP.
Visual Studio 2012 in itself is big enough to publish a whole range of books on each of the project types it supports and also the IDE has so many features that could be covered in a book. This book did not do that, it especially relates to the new areas in Visual Studio 2012.
Despite the fact that I have been working with Visual Studio 2012, provided early feedback and work with the product on a daily base the book allowed me to find several gems in the product that I had not seen or did not use before.
The book covers a lot of new items in areas such as Windows 8 Store Applications, Web Development, .NET 4.5, Debugging, Async, C++ (yes, C++ is back, blow the dust of your old book sets!) and also Team Foundation Server 2012.
As I said earlier, each areas covered in the book could be, and I’m sure in fact will be covered by individual books and dive deep in the subject matter but that is not the goal for this book. Visual Studio 2012 Cookbook provides a quick overview of ‘What is new’ to not only the novice user but also more experienced users can benefit from discovering all these new features and enhancements as are provided by version 2012.
So if you are looking for a book that quickly runs you down with an overview of the new things in Visual Studio 2012 and Team Foundation Server 2012 this book could be a big help to you. Just read it from cover to cover, or select the items you need, learn about the updates and deep dive from there as you now know where to look for it.
Here is the official link to the book with the complete Table of Contents, the sample chapter 6 “Asynchrony in .NET” and references to where you can buy it:
http://www.packtpub.com/visual-studio-2012-cookbook
If you also read it let me know what -you- thought of the it, what you liked and what you would like to see improved. The best way to learn is by working and discussing it with others!