Essential .NET, Volume I: The Common Language Runtime [Paperback]

Don Box (Author), Chris Sells (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201734117 | ISBN-13: 978-0201734119 | Publication Date: November 14, 2002 | Edition: 1

Essential .NET will enable developers to take advantage of the full power available to them in Microsoft .NET. It goes far beyond the features-based "how-to" books currently on the market to also explain the "why" behind C #, .NET, and the CLR. As with all of Don's books, it is packed with practical detail and expert advice. It promises to be the book developers will reach for first with questions about the CLR and .NET. In his new position at Microsoft Don is even better placed to evangelize for this book. He will be speaking everywhere, and will continue placing articles in MSDN, where he has already started excerpting this book. Since this book was first announced last fall, there has been a groundswell of interest in it. There will be a foreword from Jim Miller, the inventor of the CLR. Originally appeared in October 2001 catalog.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"Don taught me stuff I didn't know about my own product! And I bet he'll teach you something, too."
—From the Foreword by James Miller, Lead Program Manager, Common Language Runtime, Microsoft Corporation

Essential .NET, Volume 1, provides everything developers need to take full advantage of the power of Microsoft .NET. This book describes, in depth, the glue of the .NET Framework: the Common Language Runtime (CLR). Box and Sells explain the inner workings of the CLR—the rationale behind its design, the problems it solves, and the role of type in CLR programming—and show readers how to build better applications using the .NET Framework while gaining a more complete understanding of how the CLR works.

The book is packed with the practical detail and expert advice only Don Box can provide. Topics covered include:

• CLR's evolution
• Assemblies in the .NET Framework
• The CLR type system
• Programming with type
• Objects and values
• Methods
• Explicit method invocation
• Application domains
• Security
• Interoperability

Essential .NET, Volume 1, is an authoritative guide to the Microsoft .NET Common Language Runtime.

Books in the Microsoft .NET Development Series are written and reviewed by the principal authorities and pioneering developers of the Microsoft .NET technologies, including the Microsoft .NET development team and DevelopMentor. Books in the Microsoft .NET Development Series focus on the design, architecture, and implementation of the Microsoft .NET initiative to empower developers and students everywhere with the knowledge they need to thrive in the Microsoft .NET revolution.

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About the Author

Don Box is a leading educator, recognized authority on the Component Object Model (COM), coauthor of the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) specification, and coiner of the term "COM is Love." He recently joined Microsoft as an architect in the Microsoft^® .NET Developer and Platform Evangelism Group.

Earlier in his career, Box cofounded DevelopMentor Inc., a component software think tank aimed at educating developers on the use of the COM, Java, and XML. A popular public speaker, Box is known for engaging audiences around the world, combining deep technical insight with often outrageous stunts.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (November 14, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201734117
• ISBN-13: 978-0201734119
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,005,825 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointment, February 20, 2003

By 

ET (T.O.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essential .NET, Volume I: The Common Language Runtime (Paperback)

I have read Don's Essential COM and was really looking forward to this one, having read the reviews.

While "E COM" covers things you must know about COM, "E .NET" often tells "deductions" about things you aren't supposed to know.

Writing style: how would you like "Having said that" and "To that end" in every other paragraph? Also Don spends 3 sentences where 1 would suffice and doesn't spend enough were it's needed. And I thought I knew his style.

First 1/3 is quite a waste if you already have spent a few month working with .NET and digging MSDN. And if you haven't the last 2/3 aren't for you.

If you expect insights into .NET technologies, such as ASP.NET, Forms or ADO.NET, pass it by. This book as title claims is just that - CLR. It tells you too much about CLR if you just want to use it and not enough if you want to port it to another platform.

There was pretty good explanation of COM-.NET relationships, well, to be expected. If it was up to Mr. Box he wouldn't let COM go, even though he sympatizes MTS team that had problems employing it for AOP introduction.

If you expect to do a lot of porting/plumbing this book is for you.
I'm giving it 3 points and I will leave it to dust until I come across a problem that's been addressed in the book.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential to your understanding of the CLR......., December 4, 2002

By 

A. Lowe (Detroit, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Essential .NET, Volume I: The Common Language Runtime (Paperback)

When Microsoft introduced COM to the development community, many developers became utterly confused. It was not uncommon for developers to say things like "What is COM?". In late 1997, Don Box taught all who read "Essential COM" the intricacies of COM. Don convinced many of us that COM really could be a better C++. Also in "Essential COM", Don distilled the "meat" of COM when he covered Intefaces, IUnkown, QueryInterface, Classes, Objects, and more.

Well, Microsoft released the first version of .NET (place your own definition here) including the Common Language Runtime almost a year ago. In Don's latest book "Essential .NET, Volume 1: The Common Language Runtime", he does it again. Yes, Don, with the help of Chris Sells, has extrapolated the key parts of the Common Language Runtime (CLR) or what Don might call a better COM.

Before I get into the meat of the review, I want to say that, in my opinion, this book is not for a beginning programmer and not necessarily even a beginning .NET programmer. If you are a beginning programmer and want an understandable, but not as deep, technical explanation of the CLR then I recommend you read "Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming" by Jeffrey Richter. If you are an experienced COM developer or you have spent some quality time programming in the .NET environment then I think this title ("Essential .NET, Volume 1: The Common Language Runtime") will be a great addition to your library.

As the title ("The CLR as a Better COM") suggests, the first chapter takes a look at the origins of COM and provides the reader with the problem that the CLR is supposed to correct. This chapter is moderately useful to the experienced COM developer as it does set the intent, tone, and style of the chapters that follow. To the development newbie (who I wouldn't recommend read this book), this chapter will be less useful as the newbie is less concerned with where we came from and more concerned with they can live in the environment. I found the first chapter kind of fluffy.

The second chapter, "Components", is where the reading gets good and meaty. When Don and Chris say "Components" they mean every little bit and byte that makes up the component. As a result, chapter two covers Modules, Assemblies, Public Keys, the CLR Loader, Resolving Names to Locations, and Versioning. It is in this chapter that, among other things, I learned that of the four assembly types the Module type is the only one that does not contain an assembly manifest. I loved the graphic illustrations in this chapter and the detailed description of what is *really* in an assembly.

The third chapter, "Type Basics", covers all things type. The Common Type System (CTS) is another of the many acronyms introduced by .NET. The CTS is, essentially, what guarantees us that a String in Visual Basic .NET is a String in C#. Well, the String type can further be defined with all of the technical makeup of a Type in the CLR. Don and Chris bust open the Type shell and describe what's inside. There are lots of little code snippets in this chapter and more great illustrations. I'm a very visual person so the code snippets really put many of the concepts into perspective for me. They also give me a head start when I head to notepad, a compiler, Anakrino, and ildasm to start doing some investigation of my own.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hardcore .NET, January 4, 2003

By 

Bradley J. Wilson (Redmond, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Essential .NET, Volume I: The Common Language Runtime (Paperback)

Don't let the first few chapters of this book fool you: this is a book for hardcore .NET developers. It shouldn't be the first book you buy about .NET, as it goes into incredible detail about the fundamentals of the .NET platform. For example, when you learn about using types on the platform, it's not just a pragmatic approach to writing code: it shows underneath how the system does what it does. This gives you a fuller view of the system, and lets some of the mystery disappear. The knowledge makes you a better "big picture" developer.

Don thinks at a high level, and writes very concisely as a result. By any other author, this book might've been a 1400 page mammoth; I'm amazed at the valuable data he's packed into just over 400 pages.

Some developers may the material in this book unattainable because of the concise and in-depth technical material. Those who do grok it will find it invaluable. This book was well worth the wait for me.