Advanced .NET Remoting [Paperback]

Ingo Rammer (Author), Mario Szpuszta (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1590594177 | ISBN-13: 978-1590594179 | Publication Date: February 16, 2005 | Edition: 2nd

With all the attention paid recently to Web Services, many developers don¿t realize that the true successor to DCOM is actually .NET Remoting. And what an improvement it is! "Advanced .NET Remoting" is the first book that really offers in-depth coverage of the .NET Remoting Framework. The first part of the book covers everything a developer needs to know to use the framework and its capabilities in real-world applications, including the basics of server-activated objects versus client-activated objects, formatters, channels, lifetime issues, security, configuration files, and more. The server-side hosting of remoteable components in console applications, Windows Services, and IIS are also covered in detail. The second part presents .NET Remoting internals in an unprecedented way. Ingo Rammer shows how the framework really uses message sinks and sink providers, and gives in-depth advice on why and how to implement message and channel sinks. These chapters will also give detailed insight into the synchronous and asynchronous message processing within the framework. Rammer goes far beyond Microsoft¿s documentation in explaining how .NET Remoting really works, and how it can be extended¿essential information for advanced developers. Rammer also presents the development process and source code for several real-world message sinks. He concludes with coverage of the ContextBoundObject class and .NET contexts, which allow the use of the techniques of the .NET Remoting Framework within individual, client-only applications. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ingo Rammer is cofounder and CEO of Sycom Software, an Austrian software consulting company. He works as consultant, trainer, and software architect for companies in the software and telecommunication industries. During his professional career he has worked with a range of programming platforms, although he focuses mainly on Visual Basic, Java, and the .NET platform. Most recently, he has designed and implemented several large-scale distributed applications and XML-based distributed application frameworks

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ingo Rammer is an independent consultant, mentor and developer who helps software development and telecommunication companies adopt .NET and Web Service technologies. He has also supported a number of ISVs in Europe and North America in their transition to .NET. Rammer is founder of Thinktecture, a company supporting software architects and developers with the design and architecture of .NET and Web Services applications. He is regularly invited to speak about these topics at conferences around the world, has published numerous articles on software development, and has presented as an Instructor on the subject for Developmentor. He has authored best-selling Apress books, Advanced .NET Remoting and Advanced .NET Remoting in VB.NET. Rammer works as Microsoft Regional Director in Austria.

Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 2nd edition (February 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590594177
• ISBN-13: 978-1590594179
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #532,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book for Real Programmers, December 18, 2005

By 

Jason Jackson "Jason Jackson" (Rapid City, SD, United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Advanced .NET Remoting (Paperback)

I hate it when I pay good money for a poorly written book. So when I buy a book like this and it turns out so well, I am thrilled!

I have been in ".NET land" since 2001 when .NET beta 2 came out. I have written ASP.NET and Winform applications. During that time I just have not had the need to use .NET remoting, until now. The first 2 or 3 chapters are a great introduction for experienced .NET developers. I like the fact that I did not have to wade through a lot of stuff for beginners. From there the topics get advanced, with plenty of good example code to highlight the topics. Even though I had never really touched .NET remoting (except SOAP Web Services), the explanations and examples work well for me. The author keeps the examples simple, and on-topic. In my opinion, this helps to highlight the topics at hand. The content is geared towards real programmers who will be using the technology.

I also have really enjoyed the authors' candor concerning the weaknesses of .NET remoting. They have already highlighted a bad approach that I was considering.

I am more than happy to give this book a 5 star review!

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worrisome but bought it anyway, March 30, 2005

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R. Smith (Studio City, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Advanced .NET Remoting (Paperback)

The original C# 2002 edition was one of my first "advanced" .Net books and it really got me going well into tight Remoting over fat Web Services. When the VB.Net version came out I bought it instantly not because I can't do C# but because I prefer doing VB.Net - and it made me happy that the book was exactly the same, line for line, down to the index except for the swapped-out languages.

When I saw the 2005 second edition I of course grabbed it because Rammer covered Remoting like no one else has ever been able to do and there are security things in .Net1.0SP3 that killed the old Remoting code and I wanted to have Rammer's details on the specifics of .Net1.1 (even though I use Remoting quite extensively these days).

BUT there was one little thing that almost made me not take the book to the counter. Page xxiv has the section "Who is this book for" that states: "All the samples printed in this book are written in Visual Basic .Net, but you can download each and every sample in both C# and VB.Net" The fact is that 100% of the printed code is C#, there is not one line of VB.Net in the entire book.

Like I said, C# isn't a problem for me, VB7 and C# come out as equals at the end of the day unless you need unmanaged pointers (C# wins) or need to do COM Automation (VB.Net wins) and Remoting doesn't need either of those things. But if the technical reviewer and editor and author missed such an obvious mistake then you kinda worry about whether the technical reviewer, editor and author might have missed some less obvious ones deep inside all of the complex code.

I'm crossing my fingers and hoping ... the original editions were true classics.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars competing with Web Services, March 27, 2005

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Advanced .NET Remoting (Paperback)

Judging by the previous reviews, there was an earlier edition of this book, around 2002. I am commenting on the edition that just came out in 2005.

Writing a distributed application is probably one of the hardest things to do well in programming. The authors describe the travails of other, mostly earlier attempts. DCE/RPC, CORBA, DCOM, COM+, Java RMI, EJB and Web Services/SOAP. Each had some disadvantages. Though Web Services appear the most promising. However, if you are coding such that all the machines will run .NET, then the authors suggest .NET Remoting. This is the key factor in whether you choose this over the vendor independent Web Services.

As you'd expect, the book gives a thorough explanation of Remoting. In which perhaps the best chapter is that on Tips and Best Practices. It cuts to the core of what you can best do with Remoting in its current incarnation. In this chapter, you get good, frank talk about limitations with Remoting. Most notably, not to use events or callbacks when you have a server and many clients. This makes sense, as they explain, but will go against the grain of many accustomed to GUI application development.