Customer Reviews

Distributed .NET Programming in C#

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Audience:

This book, Distributed .NET Programming in C#, is intended for experienced Microsoft developers and architects.
It expects the reader to be familiar with the basics of C#, the .NET framework, and object-oriented practices.
It also clearly assumes the reader is at least somewhat experienced with both COM and distributed programming.
If you have this background and want to learn about distributed programming in .NET, then this book is for you.

Pros:

This books covers nearly every topic in distributed .NET programming in enough detail to get you going yourself.
While this book is not solely about .NET remoting, it has three very thorough chapters that are sufficient for me.
If you are not familiar with the concept of .NET remoting, it is the centerpiece of the distributed .NET model.
It basically is the replacement for DCOM, and thus you can see that it is essential for the distributed developer.
I had read some about remoting to be familiar with the basic concepts before reading this book, but that was all;
now I could easily go out and implement .NET remoting, with this book being a great supporting reference to keep.

Of course, if you are an experienced Microsoft developer, then you also want to know about COM+ and MSMQ in .NET.
This is actually why I picked this book to read, since it covers these essential topics as well as .NET remoting.
There is one chapter on Component (or COM+) Services in .NET, and another one on Message Queuing (MSMQ) in .NET.
Both of these assume the reader is already familiar with the concepts, and gets right into their .NET details.
This included thorough discussions of Just-In-Time (JIT) activation, object pooling, and transactional support.
There were also chapters on COM Interop and Web Services, as well as an advanced "overview" of some .NET topics.

Cons:

While this book is a very good book on distributed .NET programming, there are also some things I did not like.
First, you have too read (or skip) the first 90 pages to even get to .NET remoting, and then just an introduction.
That said, I did learn several things from the author's advanced discussion of assembly binding and other topics,
but I can't help believing that this was too much -- it could have been mixed in later or put into an appendix.
Next, the chapter on Web Services, while clearly being part of distributed programming, just seemed out of place.
It was too short and too shallow -- it could have either been dropped completely or more should have been added.

Although the book was thorough with .NET remoting and some other COM+ topics, there were also some items missing.
I would have liked to have seen a short section or chapter on COM+ Events, also called Loosely Coupled Events.
To be fair, this topic is mostly left out of COM+ books too, but it is actually a very important part of COM+.
Next, as the author himself notes, there were no "real world" examples, only short code snippets as examples.
There was also little, if any, discussion of the whys and why nots of distributed programming, only the hows.
Both of these items may not matter to many readers, especially those already experienced, but they were missing.

Notes:

I have one other issue with this book that didn't really belong anywhere else -- its just one of my complaints.
There is a long (74 pages) appendix in this book called "Data Access with ADO.NET" that just doesn't belong.
It is actually a complete chapter out of another book, C# and the .NET Platform, written by Andrew Troelsen.
I have heard Andrew speak before, and I do respect his work, but it is here only because he is a colleague of
this book's author, Tom Barnaby, since it clearly isn't relevant to this book, nor the audience of this book.
I appreciate cross-marketing, doing it myself whenever possible, but this just seems to be an excessive case.

Basically, this book can be divided into 2 sections. One is for .NET remoting and the other for COM/COM+ interop.

For the .NET remoteing part, this book is not really good though.

For example, it does not explain the metadata distribution in good detail and always show you the examples need to copy the
server side assembly to client side in order to compile & run it! It really voliates the rule of ditributed networking. If you would like to learn more about .NET remoting, I recommend you another book also from Apress: Advanced .NET Remoting ISBN: 1590590252
instead of this book.

For the COM/COM+ interop part, this book does a excellent job.
First, it gives you a big picture how .NET and COM/COM+ communicate and explain how to let your .NET talk to COM/COM+ or
vice versa in good detail. I especially like the chapter for Componet Services (COM+), it shows me how .NET uses transactional service, MSMQ, etc...

In conclusion, if you like to learn COM/COM+ interop for .NET, go for this book. If you like to learn .NET remoting, go for
Advanced .NET Remoting ISBN: 1590590252
I give 4 stars to this book is because I learned quite a lot of stuff from its COM/COM+ interop chapters.

I've read that "Remoting is the unsung hero of .NET". This is a great book that introduces an aspect of the .NET Framework that is not yet widely understood. While this is not an in-depth reference on Remoting, neither is it a book for beginners. In the words of the author, this is a book "that leads the reader through a logical progression of topics while clarifying complex concepts."

The first thing I liked about the book is that the obligatory introduction to the .NET Framework (and C#) really contained some valuable information--not just an overview for beginners. In my opinion, the introductory sections alone are worth the read.

While the book is filled with sample code, the author stays with a simple example consistently throughout the book. There is no attempt to show real-world examples; but rather a simple example in real-world situations. An in-depth study of real-world remoting scenarios.

This book truly provided me with a great head start on understanding and using .NET Remoting concepts.

Many thanks to Tom Barnaby for a great book.

I have to agree with Chung Yeung Choi's review. Look at Advanced .Net Remoting by Ingo Rammer for a good review of .Net Remoting, but for COM+/Enterprise Services, I have yet to see a better treatment! It may be because that is what my focus is these days (rather than .Net Remoting), but it really helped me get up to speed quickly on the issues/problems/advantages (he points to all of these -- excellent coverage!) of Enterprise Services.

This book offers a comprehensive look at distributed programming. It goes into exceptional detail regarding com+ among other things.

I highly recommend this book.

This is an outstanding book for anyone learning .Net Remoting. I have a background in Java remoting technology like RMI and EJB's but find the .Net remoting architecture to be a better model. The book is both comprehensive and easy to read. All of the book examples work. All I can say is that the coverage is outstanding!

This book is very well written for any level developer. The layout is very clear and easy to follow. Clear and organized examples. Walks you through latest techniques and abilities of the .Net platform using C#.