Visual Basic .NET Threading Handbook [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Tobin Titus (Author), Fabio Claudio Ferracchiati (Author), Srinivasa Sivakumar (Author), Kourosh Ardestani (Author), Tejaswi Redkar (Author), Sandra Gopikrishna (Author)

Book Description

Series: Programmer to Programmer | Publication Date: June 2002

This book aims to address one of the fundamental units of .NET programming - the thread. A strong understanding of the role threads play in program execution, how multiple threads can interact in order to make efficient programs, and the pitfalls to beware of when developing multithreaded applications, are all core to a developer's ability to develop effective VB.NET programs. This book will cover how .NET applications are executed, the lifecycle of a thread in .NET, how the .NET framework uses threads, how threads work in an event-driven environment, how we can create threads, how we can avoid race conditions and deadlocks, how the activity of multiple threads can be synchronized, and how to debug multithreaded applications.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

We are aware of a small coding error, the corrected code and support files can be found on the Wrox website. We offer full support for all our tiles.

Threads are fundamental to the way GUI and server applications operate - if your code is running in a GUI, then you're already writing code in a threaded environment. If your code runs in an ASP.NET page, then you're already running in a threaded environment. This book aims to cover the tricky issues of threading in .NET, and particularly to do so from the perspective of VB.NET developers. Threading is by nature not easy to grasp, but a necessary step towards mastery of the .NET platform.

Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: Wrox Press; 1st edition (June 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861007132
• ISBN-13: 978-1861007131
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,366,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tejaswi Redkar is a software architect with a passion for writing. He works for
Microsoft and has been working on the Windows Azure platform since 2008. He is
also the Worldwide Community Lead for the Windows Azure platform in
Microsoft Services. He has architected several small- and large-scale systems on
Windows Azure for Enterprises and ISVs. Tejaswi has not only written about
conceptual topics like Threading and MSMQ, but also on broader topics, such as
software ecosystems, businesses, and platforms. Tejaswi has a Master's degree in
Computer Engineering from San Jose State University and an MBA from
University of Wisconsin, Whitewater.
Tejaswi lives in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two kids. When not working on what's next, he is either having fun with his family or bicycling on San Ramon trails.
You can find more details about him on his
LinkedIn profile at linkedin.com/in/tejaswiredkar.
Follow him: Twitter: @tejaswi_redkar

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars With better examples it would have earned more stars, July 17, 2002

By 

Daniel Moth (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Visual Basic .NET Threading Handbook (Paperback)

Currently this is the only .NET book that addresses Threading and nothing else. Furthermore, it targets VB developers and as such, it is bound to be a success (although apart from the code listings there isn't much VB-specific about it). It deserves the handbook title as it comes in 240 smaller than A4 pages and I think it is good value for money. It must be said that there isn't much in the Threading namespace that isn't covered in the book, although not all classes/methods get the same coverage and the book could have been even smaller in my opinion.

It is divided in 7 chapters. The first chapter is a good introduction to threading but a lot more could be said on AppDomains. The second & third chapters are the core of the book introducing the threading namespace, the Thread class along with almost all of its methods and the synchronization techniques available (Monitor, ReadWriterLock, Manual and AutoResetEvent, Mutex and Interlocked). This is all good stuff and if it weren't for the very basic examples, it would be excellent.

Chapter 4 is titled Design Patterns but don't get your hopes high. Not only it does not include design patterns (according to the common definition of the term) but it discusses the STA & MTA threading models in such a way that the reader may be left confused. This includes factual errors and bad grammar. It then usefully introduces 3 threading models (Main & Worker, Peer, and Pipeline models) but they are really let down by the respective accompanying examples. The (many) authors have tried to describe a single code example by retrofitting the 3 models to it each time; they should have introduced a different example per threading model as applicable.

Chapter 5 describes the Thread Pool and makes good reading. I was looking forward to the 6th chapter on debugging/tracing threads but there was only a generic description of debugging for VS.NET, which in my opinion, could have been omitted altogether. The book ends with a complete example that uses the classes from the Net namespace.

Besides any criticism you find above and the 3 star rating that reflects the quality of the work, I do recommend this book to .NET developers who are new to threading.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I like it, June 25, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Visual Basic .NET Threading Handbook (Paperback)

I didn't know anything about threading. I had heard about it, but didn't know anything about it. This book started off very good and described what threading was, how it's used in the new version of Visual Basic, when to use it, and how to use it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice book, but some of code has errors, July 16, 2002

By 

Jim Taylor (Berkshire, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Visual Basic .NET Threading Handbook (Paperback)

The book is very good. Especially the Synchronization and the Scalability chapters. Chapter 1 is fine, but the code in chapter 1 is not edited properly. The editors haven't done a good job in correcting gramatical errors. But, I recommend this book if you want to learn threading in .Net. This book has some good end-to-end examples that show the importance of threading.