Customer Reviews

Microsoft® .NET Distributed Applications: Integrating XML Web Services and .NET Remoting (Pro-Developer)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm only halfway through this one, and I decided I just HAD to write a review. In a world that has 200-page books written by five authors (see my IIS6 Handbook review), a comprehensive 700 page book that speaks with a single voice is a rare find. I've found a few other good single-author books (like Balena's book on VB), but this is far and away the best book for learning enterprise architecture, best design practices & patterns, and advanced techniques like multithreading.

Here's just one example: I've lost track of how many times I've read about how to use COM+ services in .NET without an explanation of why I should (or shouldn't)!! This book not only explains brilliantly how to use COM+, it explains when you should and shouldn't use it, and the limitations you'll encounter. We also get similar treatment of threading issues (for 2 whole chapters), caching/optimization, security (in only one chapter, but it's a solid overview). There's also a chapter just on design that talks in practical terms about facades, factories and other patterns. I've read some of this stuff in other books, but all I got was theory and contrived examples. In this book I see how to apply these patterns in the real world. That alone would have won me over.

Basically, this book is FULL of great material for anyone who knows the code but want to move up. It also includes three full case studies, which I haven't seen anywhere else. I'm not a big fan of case studies, but these do show the author's multi-layered approach in detail. Overall, great!

Having recently passed 70-310, I found this book to be exceedingly helpful in cementing certain .NET distributed concepts for the exam-- meanwhile, related MCAD/MCSD study guides like those from Sybex and Microsoft (?!) came up short...

Chapters 1-9 of this book provided clear explanations and working examples for 70% of the content I encountered on my recent exam, while topics covered equally well in Chapters 11-15 accounted for the remaining 30%. Even Windows Services can be found about mid-way through Chapter 7.

If you are keen on moving into distributed .NET programming and/or preparing for 70-310 (like me), I would highly recommend this book. I would not have earned my MCAD credential without it...

Solid information for those interested in building N-tier architectures in a Microsoft world. Great stuff on how to build business objects -- I haven't found much on Microsoft object caching except in this book. Sadly, MS hasn't gone as deep as JBoss, BroadVision or similar products but this book helps fill the gap.

This book won't tell you every single thing about .Net Remoting, Web Services, Com+ or Message Queueing, but since it gives you a lot of info on all those techs and a lot of others it's the perfect book for people who plan on creating Distributed Applications.
I have read it full now and it helped me a LOT in my work. I work as an application developer at a bank and I'm supposed to do the company workflow system. It has to be very scalable so I needed to build a distributed architecture. This book helped me building this architecture and getting it approved by the board.

Great Book!

All the code in this book is VB.Net. I don't know why I assumed that it would be C#. It definately would have been nice to see the words "Visual Basic Only" or something to that effect on the cover.

This book is absolutely one of the best materials i have read that is written for an intermediate level. I think the author does a great job at explaining things and providing "real life" examples.

One such thing that struck me was his explanation of "business objects" in Chapter 10 and giving a real life example of it, including the disadvantages and the alternative solutions. (You should know that there are several red books out there that deal purely about business objects but just beat around the bush hardly providing anything useful!). In other words straight forward information without buzz words or hype.

Good examples of Threads and ThreadPools. Information that you can use in a multi-threaded application and not some superficial exposure.

Great remoting coverage including the crucial examples of how to use interfaces.

Bottom line: Buy It!

This is one of the books that deals with Distributed Applications using Web Services and .NET Remoting. It provides you in such a length that you probably do not need any other book.

Excellent writing, examples and and every thing. The only reason for the "but..." part is that the code is in only VB.NET. It would have been nice to have both C# and VB.NET examples. Also, I could not get the code to compile with the latest .NET framework. May be things changed a bit, but not knowing VB and not being able to compile will limit and hinder the progress I made while reading the book.

Still, I would still keep this book at my fingertips for many reasons. If you are into Distributed Applications and want to take a look at how Web Services and .NET can help you build the applications, you *must* own this book.

The front & back cover didn't mention that the book's examples are all in Visual Basic.Net. It would have been nice to know that, since I bought the book expecting C#. I wouldn't recommend the book unless the reader is fluent in Visual Basic.NET... or unless the author posts C# versions of the example code on the book's companion website.

Matthew MacDonald shows clearly how to write enterprise class applications with VB.NET. Happy to read a lot about threading, COM+ explanations, messaging, remoting and other advanced concepts along with good case studies, in VB.NET. The book is real strong in both concepts and code.

I bought this book both to help me study for a certification exam and to broaden my understanding of distributed app dev. Like many, I am very experienced with non-distributed Web and Windows apps using VB.NET and am not as strong in many of the subjects covered in this book. Through the half of the book I have read so far, the author introduces and explains new, complex topics at a quick but understandable pace and with solid code examples. Many technical books tend to be written disjointedly with lots of grammetical mistakes, like they were hurried to print too soon. This is well-written. And it covers almost every topic that I need to understand for architecting real distributed applications.