Developing Applications with Visual Studio.NET [Paperback]

Richard Grimes (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201708523 | ISBN-13: 978-0201708523 | Publication Date: February 21, 2002 | Edition: 1

This is the.NET book C++ developers have been waiting for: a meaty, practical guide to Visual Studio.NET programming from one of the world's leading authorities on Microsoft development. Best-selling COM/ATL author Richard Grimes begins by reviewing the fundamental concepts that underlie the .NET Runtime, including managed vs. unmanaged code, garbage collection, the Microsoft Intermediate Language, type information, and metadata. Next, Grimes introduces the .NET Class Libraries -- first at a high level, and then with far greater detail about the libraries that will be of greatest value. Grimes covers contexts and remoting, introducing serialization, marshalling, channels and SOAP, and the role of Web services as an interoperability mechanism. Once readers are solidly grounded in .NET, Grimes turns to Visual Studio.NET: its facilities, tools, and project structure, ranging from project management issues to Web discovery. In Part III, Grimes offers comprehensive coverage of using Visual Studio.NET to build advanced applications. He presents detailed coverage of managed C++ written for experienced C++ developers; a thorough walkthrough of C++ development with WinForms designed to help developers migrate from Win32; extensive coverage of Microsoft's ATL Server and web application/service development; and finally, a full chapter on debugging. For every experienced Windows developer familiar with Visual C++.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

DEVELOPING APPLICATIONS WITH VISUAL STUDIO.NET is an in-depth guide that takes Windows programming to the next level: creating .NET applications that leverage the prior knowledge and experience of C++ Win32 programmers. The .NET Framework supplies programmers with rich standard run-time services, supports the development of Web-based services, and provides both inter-language and inter-machine interoperability. Programmers can now focus on creating more complex, more distributed, and more Web-enabled applications.

This book begins by describing the .NET Framework, introducing the facilities .NET offers and the classes programmers can use. It goes on to describe the tools available in Visual Studio.NET and demonstrates their use. Readers are then ready to develop and debug applications with the help of clearly illustrated examples in C# and Managed C++.

DEVELOPING APPLICATIONS WITH VISUAL STUDIO.NET covers commonly overlooked topics such as error handling, memory management, event logging, localization issues, performance monitoring, ATL Server, and Managed C++. Author Richard Grimes shares his hard-won understanding of Visual Studio.NET, emphasizing the innovations that save you time and trouble and steering you away from those that limit programming power.

Among the topics explored in-depth:

• The Common Language Runtime (CLR)
• Core classes in the Framework Class Library
• Contexts and .NET remoting
• Interoperation and COM+
• The Visual Studio.NET environment
• Creating and building solutions
• Visual C++.NET
• Application development
• Debugging

With this book as your guide, you will learn how to efficiently develop strong, robust code within .NET.

0201708523B01092002

About the Author

Richard Grimes is an independent consultant specializing in COM, ATL, and .NET. He is the best-selling author of a number of books written for Wrox Press, including Professional Visual C++ MTS Programming (1999), Beginning ATL 3 COM Programming (1999), Professional ATL COM Programming (1998), and Beginning ATL COM Programming (1998).

0201708523AB07292002

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Product Details

• Paperback: 832 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (February 21, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201708523
• ISBN-13: 978-0201708523
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,284,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quality book that offers a lot of insight into .NET, October 25, 2002

By 

Southern California .NET User Group (SoCalNETug.org) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Developing Applications with Visual Studio.NET (Paperback)

The book really comes from the perspective of a Win32/C++ developer. I would not recommend this book, unless you have come from this background, or really want to understand some of the internals of .Net (and are really willing to spend some time in it). It also only really covers Visual C# and Visual C++.Net (managed and unmanaged).
Overall it is a quality book that offers a lot of insight into the world of .Net. It requires one to read it a few times through to really get the details as Grimes has a tendency to dig deep into details that may not make sense at the time.
The organization is fair but could use a lot of work as the chapter layout seems a little disjointed. There could also be many more examples in the book. The book provides an adequate number of examples, but could use more.
The first few chapters really spend a lot of time digging into the framework. Many times Grimes leads one deep down a path (such as boxing and unboxing) and others he refers to another chapter later (such as exception handling etc). It's a decent overview of .Net but requires one to read it over a few times. Many times it delves into the inner workings of .Net that might not be easy to grasp the first time through.
The second chapter starts looking at the framework classes, and gives a healthy overview of .Net's offering. Chapter 3 gets into .Net remoting and context. Overall I think chapter 2 and 3 are probably the best of the book.
Chapter four concerns itself with COM interop and COM+. This chapter is a good overview of what was done before and how it works in .Net. It is a necessary chapter, but I for one kinda glossed over it. The price of interop tends to be fairly high and to be avoided wherever possible. I think this is a great chapter, though, as I am sure I will need to do this at some point and this will be a good reference.
Chapters 5 and 6 concern themselves with Visual Studio .Net and how to build applications. Pretty good chapters, especially if you have not become familiar with the IDE yet. The section on tools and external tools are very important.
Chapter 7 is all about Visual C++.Net (managed and unmanaged). I think this is really a highlight as there are not many good books on Visual C++.Net. Grimes does an excellent job of describing the enhancements to Visual C++ and some features that have been widely ignored (ATL Server and Visual C++ unmanaged).
Chapter 8 provides an excellent overview of application development. Unfortunately the book does not cover ADO.Net or ASP.Net, but it makes up for it by covering many tricky areas of development like localization, and logging mechanisms.
Chapter 9 covers debugging. I wish this chapter was actually longer, but It does a good job of showing debugging techniques for .Net. This chapter is an absolute must read for any developer, as debugging techniques can not be over stressed.
Overall I think the book is very detailed and it should be in any serious developer's library. This is definitely not a beginer's book and does not cover many aspects of .Net development that are almost essential. Windows Forms, Remoting are covered lightly but really almost requires a book in and of itself to describe it correctly. I recommend this book, but be careful to do a self evaluation before you dive in. I have seen many senior developers read this book and not understand any of it. It is very clear about it's target audience being of a Visual C++ background, and it is not lying. I think it provides the best book for introducing those developers into .Net. Hope you enjoy this book, too. -- Reviewed by Mathew U.

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Too Much C#, March 18, 2002

By 

Dan Tepper (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Developing Applications with Visual Studio.NET (Paperback)

I've read Richard Grimes' other works published by WROX, and eagerly looked forward to this one. While i found it technically very informative, the book claims to be targeted at "C++ Win32 Developers" but the vast majority of examples are C#. In spite of what everyone seems to think, the languages are not interchangeable, and I expected much more of a C++ angle. Am I the only C++ developer who feels C# is being rammed down my throat whether I like it or not?

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good book if you can choke down "Managed C++", August 11, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Developing Applications with Visual Studio.NET (Paperback)

Updated Review:
After a year of programming real world projects with .NET, I had to change my opinion on this book. As the author acknowledges, there is ALOT of existing C++ code and libraries. Trying to port existing code or using Interop techniques is not always the best solution. I'm glad to have a reference to Managed C++ that helps me compile C++ solutions to .NET(I would like to see a tiny bit more on mixed mode, c runtime linking, and C++ idioms that Just Don't Work). I still believe this is not the simplest book for learning C#, but those books have become a dime a dozen. This book is one you'll be glad if you need to using existing software.
Original Review:
Ok, I'm a C++ developer that has a hard time stomaching what MS has done to my beloved language. However, I am very interested in the .NET initiative( and C# ) and wanted to get the perspective of a C++ expert, especially one with a COM background. I read this book and found it quite good, except for the examples in "Managed C++"( in which there were many ). Granted, I was warned, but seeing C++ twisted like that reminded me of Bilbo's line ...butter scraped over too much bread... . The "Managed C++" examples were truly distracting. The author had to explain why the plumbing overhead, we learned to detest in COM, now exists in every line of code in "Managed C++"( my words, not his ).