Applied Microsoft® .NET Framework Programming (Pro-Developer) (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming is a tutorial. It's meant for programmers who already know an object-oriented language and want to apply their knowledge in the standardized environment provided by the Microsoft .NET Framework. The book, written by Jeffrey Richter, a programmer and the .NET columnist at Microsoft's magazine for its developer community, takes a more or less language-agnostic approach to the run-time environment (though many illustrative examples are in C#). It aims to untangle the Common Language Runtime (CLR) and some of the Framework Class Library (FCL), and generally succeeds, particularly at the former. Richter shares his knowledge of the key classes you can instantiate in the CLR, and the kinds of operations you can perform on and with them.

You can read this book, or individual chapters, from beginning to end. You'll probably find it more helpful, though, if you read individual sections as you encounter problems or develop an interest in specific aspects of the CLR (ideal for those middle-of-the-night "I wonder how it does..." questions). Richter typically lets his code do most of the talking, and he'll often introduce a section with a prose summary of the CLR way of doing something (sometimes with a supplementary diagram) before unleashing a string of quick examples that illustrate variations on the theme. In an unusual and helpful tutorial move, he makes heavy use of the ILDASM utility to show what goes on at compile time. --David Wall

Topics covered: How the Microsoft .NET Framework--in other words, the Common Language Runtime (CLR) and parts of the Framework Class Library (FCL)--runs Microsoft .NET applications, and how to write software for the framework. Shared assemblies, characteristics of CLR types (including their properties, methods, fields, and events), and object orientation all get ample coverage. There's particularly detailed information on text manipulation (including internationalization and localization), arrays, custom interfaces, and the managed environment (garbage collection) in the CLR environment.

Product Description

This title takes advanced developers and software designers under the covers of .NET to provide them with an in-depth understanding of its structure, functions, and operational components so they can create high-performance applications for .NET more easily and efficiently. Developers learn to program .NET applications while gaining a solid understanding of fundamental .NET design tenets. This title not only covers the infrastructure and architecture of .NET in-depth but also shows developers the most practical ways to apply that knowledge.

Product Details

• Paperback: 591 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (January 23, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735614229
• ISBN-13: 978-0735614222
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #190,309 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential .NET Book, February 12, 2002

By	RICHARD DIBONA (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a highly experienced VB/COM developer, I have been making the move over the C# and .NET. I have spent hours at the book stores looking over nearly every book available. I have bought a bunch of books as well, but none have come close to this book as far as insight, depth of knowledge, and .NET fundamentals. Mind you, this book is by no means for programming or object oriented beginners. It is meant for programmers who really know their stuff, but now want to know their stuff on .NET. Expecting to create a .NET solution without thorough knowledge of the material in this book would be seriously shortchanging your app.

Each chapter of this book covers a different fundamental piece of .NET -- Methods, Events, Shared Assemblies, Exceptions, etc. Without getting too language specific, he writes thoroughly about how these fundamentals were meant to be used. It is clear that he spent a lot of time with the Microsoft .NET team, as much of the material in this book is unavailable elsewhere, to my knowledge. But this book is far from a Microsoft infomercial, as so many are. For example, he talks about C# primitive types and actually disagrees with Microsoft's C# language spec with regard to their usage.

In summary, I would highly recommend this book to any experienced programmer who is serious about getting up to speed with .NET.

48 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading written by a longtime Windows expert, March 11, 2002

By	Mock Duck (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

As a C++ programmer moving into the C#/.NET world, I found this book essential to good .NET program design. With VS 7, Intellisense and MSDN samples it's possible to just "jump in" and start writing Windows apps in C#, but I wouldn't recommend it if you have the time to read this book first. Richter describes in detail the intricacies of compilation, IL, value types, boxing, interfaces, the garbage collector, and other things that work slightly different from how they did in the C++ world. It WILL help you know where to expect those subtle bugs and how to avoid them.

In addition, Richter covers a lot of the new features built in the language that will save you development time. He doesn't tackle most of the specialized classes in the .NET Framework like other books (e.g. the Wrox one) does, but he does go in depth into the ones that will be used by most programmers - for example, the new things you can do with strings (all Unicode, with built in text conversion routines and methods for locale-sensitive comparisons), the new type objects that all objects expose (not just strong typing, you can query the inheritance model and all sorts of good stuff), and some delightful tricks you can do with enums that will make you fall in love with them all over again.

If you tried to read Advanced Windows and were scared off or bored, I want to reassure you that Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming is more readable than Advanced Windows was - you can actually hole up in a little cafe and read it from end to end if you want to, in about a day and a half. It's also a little more accessible to people without a theoretical background or college degree in computer science. But rest assured, Richter goes into quite enough detail for the compiler geeks among us.

Understanding of COM, object-oriented programming, interfaces, stack vs. heap memory, etc. is required. I thought I would be dragged into .NET kicking and screaming, but I've become quite the evangelist - partially due to this book.

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Inside look to .Net Framework, July 18, 2002

By	Deema Shaath (Kuwait) - See all my reviews

This book is an excellent inside look to programming with the .Net Framework. It is a good start to anyone who wishes to familiarize himself with it . This book is all about the small stuff that many .Net programming books tend to ignore . What I particularly liked in this book are the following:
- How the Compiler assembles C# code into IL code . In many chapters this is done to show performance impact on doing thing one way not the other way
- Working with CLR Types : comparison between types, and how to perform casting, boxing, and unboxing
- Events and Delegates and how to use them
- Exception was covered in more details than the typical ( try - catch) explanations that I found in most other .Net books. I particularly liked the talk about unhandled exception and non CLS compliant exceptions.

I read the book from cover to cover and used some techniques in terms of delegates and exception handling in my application. I just found the chapter on "Garbage Collection" little confusing. Also it doesn't have a lot of programming examples, and all the programming examples are in C#.

ONE FINAL THING to add is that this book is mainly about programming with Common Language Runtime. It is not a reference book that covers the different class libraries that .Net framework offers and how to use them, for that you probably need to buy other books to cover topics such as : ASP .Net, ADO.NET, Web Services, Remoting, etc.. .