Customer Reviews

Shared Source CLI Essentials

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

 

 

As someone who has spent a fair amount of time toying with and writing about managed code I have to say that I am in awe of the wisdom and clarity contained in this book. "SSCLI Essentials" transcends its subject matter (a research platform unlikely to be used much outside of academia) to be one of the best books I've ever read on Virtual Execution concepts. Java, the CLR, Smalltalk, and all other such environments ultimately have to solve the same problem (How to turn source code into executing machine instructions?). This book uses the SSCLI as a backdrop for exploring decades of VM research and explaining the historical forces influencing how and why this particular implementation (and by implication, Microsoft's commercial CLR) works.

The resulting volume is concise, fascinating, and thorough. Given the increasing importance of virtual environments in the computing world today I think most all working developers (including Java developers!) owe it to themselves to read this book. Even if you never plan to install or use the SSCLI codebase you'll benefit from Dave and friends' lucid explanation of the issues facing modern VM environments and how one particularly popular platform chooses to solve them.

This book is the best and most concentrated source of information I've found for understanding how the .NET CLR is implemented (comparable only to Chris Brumme's blog). Even if you never actually build the SSCLI, this book combined with the SSCLI source code can provide a solid understanding of what's going on behind the scenes in the commercial CLR. I have found this level of understanding to be absolutely necessary in understanding and diagnosing some types of unusual behaviour or performance characteristics of .NET.

If you're not using the SSCLI on a UNIX machine and have a solid understanding of the Win32 API, you can probably safely skip the last chapter on the PAL as it is somewhat anti-climatic. However, coming from a UNIX programming background myself, I found it to be of value in solidifying my understanding of Win32 specific functionality (eg. structured exception handling) and how its used by the SSCLI.

Obviously this book is a must-read for anyone that is actually experimenting with the SSCLI, but I also consider it essential for anyone that wants to fully understand how the commercial version of .NET works.

The editorial description makes more claims that what the book deals with. Following are the excerpts from the book description at Amazon.com:

>> Microsoft's Shared Source CLI (code-named "Rotor") is the implementation of the ECMA Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) and the ECMA C# language specification.

Above implies: (Shared Source CLI) = (Rotor) = (ECMA CLI + C#)

>> [The book] is a companion guide to Rotor's code. [It] provides a road map for anyone wishing to navigate, understand, or alter the [Rotor] code.

The book declares in the introduction that it does not cover several components of Rotor. The run-time engine is covered, but the compiler (C#) part is not. That is less that half of what was claimed. I correspondingly give 3/5 to the book.

I was interested more in the C# compiler part.

Well, there I was sitting on my bed with my new book. I opened the first page and didn't surface again for 9 days; it's that good i read it cover to cover, twice! I found it not only intellectually exciting, but also quite arousing; the way they talk about managed code gave me a right chubby one!