Customer Reviews

Practical Mono (Expert's Voice in Open Source)

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At first glance, you would think that Practical Mono is yet another
introductory book about C# and Mono, but all of that drastically
changes the moment you look at the book's table of contents and see
the variety of topics it covers and the lengths to which the author
goes to describe the more important details.

The book gently eases the into what .NET and Mono are giving a
historical background for each. What I found very interesting is the
fact the author takes time to explain about .NET in the real world,
and ties this to Mono to give the reader a clear idea of how any why
Mono was started and what the reader can do to participate in this
effort.

Since a lot of people using Mono might be coming from a traditional
.NET environment, the author expects those people to be used to
certain development tools. To that effect, the second chapter in the
book is dedicated to introducing the reader to development tools that
can be used with Mono, especially Mono Develop. This gives the reader
some heads up about what can be used instead of their conventional
development tools and makes sure you start off on solid grounds.

Having gotten the user all set up and ready for action, the book then
moves on to introduce the author to C#. This is a subtle introduction
that eases the user into what C# is and how the language works.
Chapter 3 comes in very handy when you want to brush up on your C#
skills or are new to C#. the author continues to give the reader more
information about C# in a more detailed fashion in Chapter 4,
"Learning C#: Beyond the Basics". This chapter goes into some
nitty-gritty detail about C# classes, exceptions, and all round more
advanced C# topics.

Chapter 5 moves into the more exotic areas of .NET that deal with the
CLR, IL, assemblies, and the general assembly cache (GAC). This
chapter is very helpful if the reader wishes to acquire in depth info
of how the .NET environment works. Other discussed topics here are
garbage collection, application domains, and the class library. This
is one of those chapters that make this book an excellent
recommendation for both novice and advanced users of C# and .NET.

The first 5 chapters have made sure the user is very knowledgeable
about what Mono is, what .NET is, what C# is, and how all of them
relate to each other. They have also explained C# and introduced the
reader to its syntax and advanced features. Starting with Chapter 6,
the "Practical" bit from the books title starts to kick in quite
strongly. If its a book with both theoretical and real world
information that you want, then the coming chapters are really going
to quench your thirst.

Chapter 6 goes right into the heart of on of .NET's most desired
features, Windows Forms. The author explains what Windows Forms is,
what GDI+ is, how to implement a good user interface, and gives real
world examples of how to do all of that introducing the reader to
Windows Forms' various controls. A nice section that is mentioned in
several chapters is the "Whats New in Version 2.0?" section that
informs the reader about what to expect in the new version of .NET in
regard to that particular topic.

Because the author knows that not all people will be using Windows
Forms to design their graphical interfaces, he goes into GTK+ and
Glade and takes up a complete chapter explaining what they are and how
they can be used instead of Windows Forms. Chapter 7 serves as a
gentle introduction to the GTK+ and Glade world, and makes sure the
uses knows how to pick between Windows Forms and the GTK+ / Glade
combination.

After finishing Chapter 7, the user has a very good idea about how to
design a complete graphical user interface using freely available
tools (Windows Forms in Mono, and GTK+ / Glade using GTK# in Mono).
The author now moves on to describe ADO.NET, a heavily used feature of
.NET which is also available through Mono. This chapters enlightens
the reader and explains all aspects of using ADO.NET in applications
to connect and utilize databases. The particular example is geared
towards installing MySQL. Explanation is given both for Linux and
Windows, which also shows that Mono can be used as a .NET alternative
on Windows.

Since XML is constantly referred to as a "hot topic", the author does
not let us down and dedicates a complete chapter to discussing XML and
Mono. If the reader is new to XML, then he / she will be pleased to
find out that an explanation to what XML is and its history is given
at the beginning of Chapter 9: Using XML. The chapter deals with
looking at XML documents and traversing them. The author shows us a
real world example by applying this knowledge to create an RSS feed
class library.

Chapter 10 is for those of us with enthusiasm for networking and
remoting. This chapter, "Introducing Networking and Remoting", starts
by explaining what networks are and their general concepts, then dives
into how we can do networking related programming in .NET. We apply
this knowledge later on and create an RSS feed handler.

Another heavily used feature in .NET is ASP.NET. Chapter 11: Using
ASP.NET, explains what ASP.NET is, how it works internally, and how to
use it. This chapter shows the reader how to set up a web server for
ASP.NET (both the XSP web server and an external web server) and moves
on to show the user how a web service can be written. A lot of readers
will find this chapter very useful as web services seem to be an
increasing and expanding field right now.

Finally in Chapter 12: Using Advanced Mono Techniques, the author
dives into such topics like performance tuning, reflection, and using
threads. Advanced readers will particularly like this chapter as it
handles some of the "harder" more demanding features of .NET.

This book not only serves as a great learning experience that shows
you how things are done in the real world, it also as a general good
reference for C#, .NET, and Mono and several of their features.
Definitely one you should have in your bookshelf right by your work
desk.

I enjoyed reading Mark's book, and I would recommend it to
people that are either getting into .NET / Mono or have some
experience but would like to further it.

I have used .NET before but only in a limited capacity and I was interested in using .NET on Mono. I therefore found the C# primer useful, but obviously not a replacement for a dedicated book. However, the step by step way in which I was introduced to key topics was intuative and easy to understand and its coverage of most .NET topics was comprehensive, especially given the constraints of a single book.

I picked up this book, hoping it would be to the usual APress standard and I wasn't disappointed. I've played with .NET on the Windows platform before but had often wished that this technology would be made available on Open Source.

When Mono was introduced, I wanted to get my hands dirty but not start learning all the facets of .NET from scratch and without having to go through the trauma of understanding the implications, how GTK+ may hook in etc.

I was therefore overjoyed to find that this book covered all of this and more and using a practical book project rather than theoretical examples. It starts gently which I was happy to go through as I picked up a tip here and there. The C# primer chapters were comprehensive and I use them to as a reference guide.

Then we went into chapters that covered ADO.NET, ASP.NET, XML, Networking and much much more. The Author has not only covered the essentials but added tips along the way and these proved very useful in ensuring that I was following a standard path.

At the end of the book, I feel comfortable with .NET and Mono and its all within the familiar surroundings of Open Source. How could it get any better!

I'd therefore recommend this book to anybody wanting to no more and .NET, Mono and more.

This is the poorest excuse for a programming book that I have purchased including many from Apress. It is very dated even if only a couple years old, does not reflect the current state of Mono. Commands are plain wrong. The author doesn't complete instructions and the sample scripts are incomplete. I finally gave up at the ADO.Net chapter where he almost tells you how to setup the database in MySQL. The book is in hardcover which my give rise to its high price but it less than 400 pages in length and given the depth of the table of contents, most subject are covered as deeply as a rock being skipped across a lake, never to sink.

I picked up this book with prior programming experience in other languages, hoping that it will help me get along with C#, and especially using it in a Unix-like environment.

I am about half-way through the book, and I have encountered countless mistakes scattered across the book. From misplaced/mislabeled figures to blatently incorrect code, to out-right confusing paragraphs/sentences. When I said "OK for experienced programmers" in the title, I mean the kind that have the ability to see past the mistakes and could fix most of the errors; they are usually obvious, however I have at times needed to look up external resources to figure out the correct way to write the syntax and other things. I cannot imagine how a person new to programming would manage to make it past the third chapter (Introducing C#), and I would not blame that person, I would place blame on the sloppy authorship and editing of this book.

I am seriously considering returning this book in favor of another which does not require me to double-check it at almost every page.

I received this book yesterday. I am on page 49, and I have already sent in 7 submissions for the errata, all of it code mistakes. BTW, the errata is not posted on the website.
This is my first time trying to tackle MonoDevelop, but have been programming with VS and C# for several years now. I also own several Apress books.

I have serious doubts about how someone new to the field could actually learn from this book with so many mistakes.

I will try and forge on to the end of this book, but it is seriously hurting my brain!

If you are an experienced C# developer looking to move to Mono for Linux support, this is NOT the book for you. It is a very basic level introduction to development using Mono and C#. It also contains several editing and content mistakes including misplaced screen shots, and simple factual errors such as describing INSERT and UPDATE as DDL and SELECT as DML (they are all DML). Frankly I expected more from APress.