My friend, Rob Chidley, has a new book out today entitled Building Bridges: Is There Hope For North Korea? Co-written with Lord Alton of Liverpool and with a foreword by Baroness Cox, it discusses how one might hope to resolve the issues of human rights, totalitarianism and general unhumanitarianism within North Korea through ‘patient but firm engagement’. Heavy stuff, but, knowing Rob, passionately written.

The book is Building Bridges: Is there Hope for North Korea by David Alton and Rob Chidley, and is published by Lion.

Buy it here:

• Amazon
• Waterstones
• The Independent
• Foyles

It's only been a few months since TypeScript was released on October 1 last year, but I'm pleased to say that my new book 'TypeScript Revealed' is being published on January 23 by Apress. I think my original title, 'A First Look At TypeScript' is a more accurate description of its contents, but there are series titles to be considered :-) It's a modest 100 pages or so and is available in both paper and e-book formats. It covers up to v0.8.1.1.

The book is aimed directly at .NET programmers who've needed to use JavaScript in the past but haven't really gone any further with it. It won't teach you JavaScript from scratch but it will use the C# and VB.NET syntax you're familiar with to introduce the new syntax features that TypeScript adds to JavaScript. It will also help you integrate TypeScript into your existing web and Windows 8 application projects and point you in the right direction of the key discussions and bugs on Codeplex and the community efforts on github.

Download the code samples for this book (175 KB)

Here's the full table of contents:

1. What is TypeScript?
   Covers the need for TypeScript, what it does and doesn't do, and how to install it in Visual Studio, node.js, and Sublime Text
2. The New Syntax
   Covers the type system, functions (parameter types, overloading and arrow), classes, interfaces, modules and features yet to come. Also notes the refactoring options in Visual Studio.
3. Working With TypeScript
   Covers the compiler, generating \ sourcing declaration files, integrating TypeScript into your own projects, and how it fits into the development lifecycle.

Apress' official page for the book. Please use this link to submit any errata for this book.

I've also started a Facebook page for the book containing any new TypeScript articles and links.

Buy it on Amazon UK, Amazon US, Barnes and Noble, and Book Depository (UK)

After a very happy eighteen months as editor of DeveloperFusion.com, I’ve decided to move on and write some more of my own copy rather than commission and edit other peoples for a while. Which means that James and Nick are looking for a new editor. If you have some spare time and would like to contribute to the great community of .NET developers, get in touch at hello@developerfusion.co.uk.

Trying to find a project which fits into baby-sleep-sized chunks has been a bit difficult of late. However, after a bit of trial and error, I’ve come up with The Client Side, a new link blog for client side development, in much the same view as The Morning Brew and Silverlight Cream. It’ll try and find as much current goodness on HTML5, CSS and Javascript development as it can. Please do visit and say hi.

It’s taken a little while to write this, but I’m happy to say that I’ve been offered and accepted the job of editor at DeveloperFusion. My new role will be to commission, edit and write new weekly – perhaps twice weekly if all goes well - articles for the site to go along with the news and roundups that are already put out frequently. Initially, I’ll be concentrating on .NET development topics as that’s what I know, but shortly I’ll be looking for articles and authors on many more topics – Apple, Ruby, Python, Perl, Architecture, Databases, Java and more.

I’ve already released two articles which you may be interested in:

• Introduction to Windows Azure – What you should know by Neil Mackenzie
• How to migrate your ASP.NET site to the Azure cloud by Richard Parker (@rikp)

These are the first two of a series of articles on Azure coming out in the next few weeks. We’ll also have some Windows Phone 7 stuff, F#, and a good helping of ASP.NET as well. Keep tuned to @developerFusion on Twitter and the article feed to keep pace with new articles as they are released.

We Need You

Of course, it goes without saying that we need your help to keep DeveloperFusion going.

If you’re a writer, experienced or wanting to write your first article, please get in touch and let me know. All the articles we publish are reviewed and edited before release so you’ll get some good feedback on your writing style, content and coding in return, as well as exposure to some 50,000 users who subscribe to our newsletter plus many more who come visiting in through the front door. And if you’d like to write but haven’t any preconceived ideas as to what to write about, we can help you with that too.

If you’d like to help but don’t want to write, perhaps you’d care to review an article or two for us. No matter your knowledge level, there’s likely to be something in the pipeline which your help will make better. You might be able to improve a writer’s code or say whether or not their article succeeds as a tutorial from your point of view as beginner yourself. Those who can, do, as they say.

Either way, please do get in touch. The email address is hello@developerfusion.com. I look forward to hearing from you.