Expert .NET 2.0 IL Assembler [Hardcover]

Serge Lidin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1590596463 | ISBN-13: 978-1590596463 | Publication Date: August 24, 2006 | Edition: 1

.NET 2.0 IL (Intermediate Language) is the foundation language at the root of all the .NET languages we rendered. It is this code which is compiled and executed by the .NET 2.0 Framework. As a result of this absolutely anything that can be expressed in IL can be carried out by the .NET 2.0 Framework.

Readers will be given in-depth explanations of the fundamentals of .NET ranging common structures, functions and rules for designing and improving .NET applications to explanation of how .NET executables compile and how the languages tools (such as the assembler, disassembler and validator) operate.

This book gives readers inside information on the language’s architecture straight from the most reliable possible source – Serge Lidin, the language’s designer.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Serge Lidin is a Software Development Engineer working for Microsoft in Washington State.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 536 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (August 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590596463
• ISBN-13: 978-1590596463
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,255,403 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #69 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > Assembly Language Programming

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent coverage of MSIL 2.0, February 1, 2007

By 

K. Gregg (Tucson, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Expert .NET 2.0 IL Assembler (Hardcover)

This is an excellent treatment of the MSIL topic at just the right level if you're in need of nitty gritty details for debugging, disassembling, or generating IL code. Coverage of the PE format for managed executables is the best I've seen. The text is well-written, the examples are clear and concise, and the diagrams are very helpful. The book can be used as both a tutorial and a reference: the appendices include an ILAsm grammar reference, a metadata tables reference, and an IL instruction set reference. The book is also available electronically to owners of the physical book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars On behalf of Naveen Razdhan, November 11, 2009

By 

Richard Trinh (Arcadia, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Expert .NET 2.0 IL Assembler (Kindle Edition)

Coding in assembly language requires a little different way of thinking, and being aware of lot more low level details, compared to writing the code in a high level language like C# or VB.NET. Since I have not written an assembly language program in a very long time, it was quite a challenge to follow this book. But I must say that, the author has done a good job of laying out the concepts in a way a novice assembly programmer like me can benefit a lot from it. I can't claim that, after reading this book, I have become very good at IL, but I am quite confident that a second run through this book and more practice in IL coding will take me closer to being there.

First three chapters of this book dive straight into an IL program and compare it with a C# program. I thought it was great way to open the book by getting your feet wet quickly without overwhelming you. From fourth chapter onwards the book goes into details of windows PE file and arrangement of Metadata into modules and assemblies. I have not found this kind of detailed information about Metadata layout anywhere else. It is tons of information and still does not overwhelm you. This information is useful even for a high level language programmer and therefore I would recommend this book to all .NET developers.

As author says, .NET universe is like a great pyramid turned upside down and CLR is the tip on which this pyramid stands. ILAsm is the language that describes every feature of the CLR and therefore learning ILAsm language will help all .NET developers build a strong foundation, and that is where this book comes very handy.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Will satisfy your curiosity, December 8, 2009

By 

J. Bergman - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Expert .NET 2.0 IL Assembler (Kindle Edition)

As an engineer, I like to understand how things work, part of this was a curiosity about the semantics of IL. This book satisfied me by clarifying the details and instructions of IL. In addition, there is detailed coverage of the assembly file format and metadata. The book is well written and after the first few chapters, I had a clear picture of the basics of IL. The rest of the information is mostly specific details that is likely to be valuable only to people who will actually build tools that need to process or generate IL.

Overall, I am not sure how valuable the information is to the average programmer. I can think of few cases where I will need the information in here. But, for a hacker with a curiosity to know what's happening one level closer to the machine this book makes for an interesting read.

The book is the only one that I have found on this topic and it is clearly written, and it may inspire you to take on a new project in IL.