Customer Reviews

Professional Refactoring in C# & ASP.NET (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

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

 

 

Both the VB.NET and C# & ASP.NET Refactoring books are great. Each has it's own unique sections, while at the same time they cover the same refactorings, smells, and Object-Oriented Design Principles in detail.

I bought the VB.NET version because I have been stuck on a VB.NET project for the past 3 years (actually 3 months, but it sure feels like years).

I have not seen the weak static typing to strong dynamic typing explained so well and in such detail anywhere else. The information in this chapter teaches the developer how to use VB.NET to program a quick prototype or industrial strength applications. He goes into tremendous detail on how to properly use the Option Strict, Option Explicit, and Option Infer statements.

I was so impressed with the VB.NET version of the book that I bought the C# and ASP.NET version of the book. The C# and ASP.NET version of the book contains two chapters on refactoring ASP.NET code.

Both books have chapters on LINQ and other language enhancements, Refactoring to Patterns, Advanced Object-Oriented Concepts, Code Organization on a Large Scale, and multiple chapters on refactoring and smells. Throughout each book the author touches on Object-Oriented Design Principles. Both books have a list of all the refactorings, smells, and Object-Oriented Design Principles page numbers so they are easy to find.

The author points out that one of the motivating factors in writing these books was to give us the refactoring techniques in the languages we work in. I agree with his motivation, all the other books I have read used Java as the language and although I learned a ton from them, each language has its own subtle differences.

The author's style of writing make reading these books a pleasure. They are very well organized.

Both come with well organized and very usable code downloads.

Both of these books are highly recommended. They definitely make learning refactoring and Object-Oriented Concepts and Design Principles very enjoyable.

It is quite amazing to see all that has been crammed inside 550 pages of this book. You will find:

- Good refresher of Object Oriented Fundamentals

- Good coverage of OO Design Principles, both Gang of Four and SOLID (Robert C. Martin)

- Chapter on Design Patterns and Refctoring to Patterns

- Refactorings and Refactoring Code Smells of course

- Refactoring tools coverage

- Treatment of C# 3.0 syntax, LINQ and LINQ 2 SQL.

- Two chapters on ASP that includes treatment of latest Internet standards, REST and ASP specific refactorings

- Finally, a book long application used to illustrate the content in close-to-real-life circumstances

Some of the content, for example Design Patterns, can only scratch the surface, but works really well as an introduction.

One comment that I would make is that author choose to describe refactoring tools that are free of charge. I think he could perfectly well choose some commercial tool - if someone decides to invest in the book on refactoring, he might as well choose to buy the refactoring tool license. This is not major problem, the tools are probably the least important aspect of the book anyway.

All of this makes this book a best single source for advanced OOP on .NET in my opinion.

Reading through this book I found very little that I wasn't already practicing, which was great for me. However, reading this book really made me wish that anyone who just got done reading a dummies book would immediately read this book. I'm so sick of seeing procedural coding styles and massive code duplication. This isn't 1996!!

It's a shame that this book is labeled 'Professional' because beginners need to read this book (or an equivalent). The author goes into detail about various refactoring methods, how to detect when you need to use them, why you should use them and how. It is a great reference for anyone who is working on a large project and would like to put the final shine on it.

I did find that reading through the chapters was a bit confusing, the side bars are out of place and interrupt the flow of reading, but other than that, I enjoyed this book and I recommend it to beginners and self proclaimed "Pro's" alike.

Ponderous paragraphs that mostly contain nothing useful, multi-page code dumps, side panels about refactorings that start with paragraphs instead of the refactoring, and annoying talking-down writing style such as "Writing your first unit test." If you are a C# programmer new to refactoring read Martin Fowler's book not this one.