Customer Reviews

.NET Framework Essentials (O'Reilly Programming Series)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you are new to .NET, trying to figure out what to learn first can be difficult; you can find yourself wading through enormous amounts of technical information, examples, and web sites, and wonder if you've covered all the main subjects. That being said, this is an excellent introduction if you want to get a good overview and grasp on what the .NET framework encompasses, and all from O'Reilly, the first publisher that seems to have broken it down, understood, summarized and simplified it for its readership. You could read this book in a few hours and get a solid base in .NET, and also save yourself a tremendous amount of time spinning your wheels with other 1000+ page books, as rushed and as disorganized as they are.

An excellent introduction to .NET Framework

As an overall Microsoft developer I was looking for a book to teach me about what .NET is all about. I wanted to know what to expect from .NET. and how to continue learning .NET in the future

As the title says this is an Introduction to .NET and to my opinion en excellent one.
Don't expect this book to teach you everything in detail on the matter.
What you will learn here is how different parts of .NET work in general and along the chapters you will encounter useful examples that shine light on the matter.

Note that 90% of examples are in simple understandable C#.
(even for none C syntax programmers it is easy to understand)

The book is easy reading and all of the examples work file with .NET Beta 2

I recommend this book for everyone who needs a kick start on .NET

Here is a brief description of chapters:

1. .Net Overview:
Talks about .NET in general, the design goals and how .NET is realized

2. The Common Language Runtime:
Talks about the inner workings of .NET and what are the different tools like gacutil.exe good for.

3. .NET Programming
Talks about the .NET core model, how/why language integration is there for everyone

4. . Working with .NET Components:
Talks about the component architecture of .NET, distributed components and about Message Queuing.

5. Data and XML:
Shines light on the new ADO.NET. Here I finally got to understand how ADO.NET works.

6. Web Services:
Talks about how web services work with some very good and understandable examples.

7. Web forms:
Shows a general overview of ASP.NET including custom server controls following some good examples

8. Windows Forms:
Shows you different sides of the new GUI programming model of .NET and comes with a very good example of how you can create GUI based apps fast and easy.

Could the future of computing include a time when you write a document in Word that's on a server in Redmond? That possibility is one of many that Microsoft envisions with their new .NET technology. And no matter how you feel about what Microsoft is doing, their new technology which is an attempt to compete with Sun's Java language is an intriguing attempt.

This book covers a wide range of topics about this technology, starting off in Chapter 1 with an overview of .NET. Chapter 2 discusses Common Language Runtime, which is .Net's most important component. Chapter 3 discusses programming in .NET and discusses the various objects used in it. While .NET doesn't directly use languages like Java or C++, it does use a lot of Visual Basic and a C offshoot, called C #(ie "C Sharp") instead. So a lot of object-oriented concepts do apply when programming for .NET.

Chapter 4 goes into greater detail about other .NET components, such as shared components, distributed components, transactions, and object pooling. Further chapters discuss how XML works with .NET and World Wide Web .NET services, Web and Windows forms, and of course the usual reference material at the end of the book.

A fascinating look at a new technology which ultimately may become a major one.

This review is based on my experiences and those of two friends who have also bought the book. Although I am only chapter 5, I felt compelled to warn people who might be attracted to the book as an introduction to .net based on the glowing reviews posted here.

Don't get me wrong - this is an excellent book. Its appeal (as stated elsewhere) is in its brevity - it cuts right to the chase both in content and in the sample code.

The downside of this is that it assumes a familiarity with a lot of sophisticated programming concepts. If you are not already familiar with things like garbage collection, P code, virtual machines, client server and OOP you will battle with this book. You will also need at least a passing familiarity with C or Java in order do follow most of the examples.

My two friends have not fared as well as I have. Both have got stuck early in Chapter 2. One is a mainframe programmer who wants to make a move to PC development. She got found it very detailed and difficult to understand. By comparison, she loved Introducing Microsoft .NET by David S. Platt and Keith Ballinger.

The other friend is an analyst, with little programming experience and he has had similar difficulties. Both were looking for a book that explained the concepts in broad terms, and provided a starting point for playing with code.

As a VB developer with 6 years experience, I have found this book great so far. The only exception being the bit on COM+ services (due no doubt, to my lack of experience in the area).

Not a good first book on .net, I think, but an EXCELLENT second book for when you want to know what happens under the hood. It gives a broad overview of the whole framework, with very specific examples that are extremely well targeted.

I'm generally pleased with the quality of O'Reiley books and ".NET Framework Essentials" continues that tradition.

The material that's covered (COM+ Component Services, Message Queueing, ADO.NET, etc) is relevent and doesn't get too bogged down in details and is timely.

I would have liked to see more coverage of the ASP.NET Web Controls, which is where this book is weak. But all things considered, it's worth the buy.

Though hardly a place to learn the .NET framework, I found this little book a very useful reference to keep by my computer. (Of course I also have the great books by Liberty ("Programming C#") and Troelsen ("C# and the .NET Platform) next to my computer as well and they should both definitely be purchased before this book.)

It would be worthwhile for any architect or developer who is interested in working with .NET to read this book. In fact I would go one further and say that it would be essential reading. Its always a good thing when essential reading gets to be as enjoyable as this book is.

A slim volume, by today's standards of computer books which by and large require winching from place to place with a crane. It comfortably complies with the received opinion that O'Reilly books being the best on the market, pound for pound. As an overview its second to none.

Although the function of this book is to act as a primer, I found that some of the chapters were more than that. In particular the chapters on "Data and XML", "Web Services" (very good) and ASP.NET "Web Forms" were authoritative without falling into the trap of becoming dry and boring.

All in all - I enjoyed it very much and learned tons from it.

I found this book to be a good overview of the .net framework for experienced programmers that want more information about .net. This book goes over almost every aspect in the .net framework at a break neck speed, this book contains overviews of asp.net, web services, deployment, windows forms, com+ services, ado.net, and xml in 300 pages.

I would not suggest this book to someone new to programming or as a first book about .net. The real value of this book is as a quick overview of all the different aspects of the .net initiative. The topics are covered so quickly that you will not learn much more than theory or the basics of any of the topics, but I think this is the intention of the book and it does serve as a good primer for future .net development.

Not once will you catch Thuan L. Thai and Hoang Q. Lam on having a lack of knowledge in this book. Let me state upfront that this is at no point a weakness. I made just one important mistake; I bought this book too soon. After reading 'VB.NET and the .NET Platform' (which is no small task), reading this book became much, much more effective. Thereby indicating the weakness of this book: Difficult, and a little bit boring after a while.

I know that saying a book is boring does not help my 'Helpfull vote' rating too much, though, I thought this is important for you to know. If you have a broad experience programming / explaining the .NET Framework and (for example) VB.NET, this little books suddenly and surely transforms into an extremely effective, highly informative, pedal to the metal book. But do NOT and I repeat, do NOT start with this book your Quest in exploring the .NET principle. You will, I am sorry to say, quickly lose interest and move on to another book.

I'm not a big fan of this book. It's INCREDIBLY hard to read and it really doesn't cover all that much. I read it and then thought, "well, this was pretty pointless."

Have you ever been in a project meeting and there's one developer in there who's read about 20 different super-obscure specs but doesn't really understand anything about any of them... then proceeds to spew volumes of impressive sounding but totally useless information that just confuses [...] everyone else?

Well, if you turned that guy into a book, you'd get ".Net Framework Essentials."

I'd say pass on this book because it can't figure out if it wants to be a 10000 meter overview of .net or a 1 centimeter exploration of a few useless details.