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Prosise
tells us in the introduction, “Microsoft .NET is many things, but first and
foremost it’s a better way to write software in an Internet-centric
world”. No single volume could begin
to be a comprehensive reference on .NET due to the shear number of classes
that make up its framework. Jeff does
deliver on his promise of teaching us how the pieces work together to allow
us to write powerful, sophisticated applications. Overall, I consider this book to be a valuable reference, one
that is worthy of the designation of, “Core Reference”, by Microsoft Press.
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This
book is not a tutorial; it is part of the Microsoft Core Reference series and
goes into too much detail for the beginner.
It is however, an excellent reference book for serious programmers,
and provides a look at the breadth and depth of the .NET Framework. Author Jeff Prosise divided the book into
three parts, Part 1 covers the Essential Concepts, Part 2 covers ASP.NET, and
Part 3 covers what he calls “The Cutting Edge”.
The Essential Concepts span the
first four chapters. In the first
chapter he introduces the reader to .NET and covers such topics as the Common
Language Runtime (CLR), the Framework Class Library (FCL), the Common
Intermediate Language (CIL), and the Managed Code languages with special
attention given to C#. Jeff also
talks about the ILDASM utility tool that permits us to examine the manifest of
an Assembly, as well as to disassemble the CIL into assembly language
instructions.
In the second chapter he
discusses classes, structs, interfaces, enumerations, and delegates. He introduces the concept of value types
and reference types, and the use of boxing and unboxing to convert between
them. He covers fundamental .NET
software development concepts such as multi-file assemblies, garbage
collection, the global assembly cache and exception handling.
In chapter 3 Prosise provides
an overview of the Framework Class Library with emphasis on the organization
of the members in the library. He
examines a selected few of the objects therein to give the reader a flavor
for the FCL. In chapter 4 he gets
into the rich support provided by the FCL for developing Windows
applications. He also introduces
Visual Studio.NET.
Part 2 focuses on ASP.NET, and
spans seven chapters. The emphasis on
ASP.NET is indicative of the purpose of the whole .NET environment. Jeff introduces Web Forms in chapter 5,
and he explores Web Form Controls in chapter 6. He explains many of these controls in depth, and uses examples
to illustrate their operation. In the
next two chapters he reveals the intricacies of User Controls and Custom
Controls. In chapter 9 he goes into
detail about the structure of ASP.NET
applications and in chapter 10 he discusses ASP.NET security. Jeff completes this section with an
introduction to Web Services. He
stresses the importance of Web Services in the future of Information
Technology and provides examples of Web Services. Jeff supports the concepts introduced in this section with both
code snippets and working examples written in C#.
Part 3 completes the book with
four chapters on ADO.NET, XML, Multithreading, and Remoting. I am not sure why Prosise chose to name
this section, “The Cutting Edge”. It
seems to me that all of .NET is the cutting edge, but I suppose
“Miscellaneous” is not a very good name either. ADO.NET was introduced in the examples in the previous section,
but in chapter 12 Jeff goes into detail about the classes provided in the FCL
to facilitate working with databases.
He leads into the next chapter by mentioning that one of ADO.NET’s
most touted features is its seamless support for XML. In chapter 13, Jeff provides an overview
of XML, its importance in the conduct of Web commerce, and the powerful
support for XML provided by the Framework Class Library. Chapter 14 changes the subject to
Multithreading by discussing the advantages as well as the pitfalls. Once again he describes how the FCL comes
to the rescue with classes that shield the programmer from those
pitfalls. Jeff completes the book by
changing the subject once again, this time to Remoting. Here he provides an example, the NetDraw
application to illustrate the power of Remoting. He predicts the use of Remoting along with Windows Forms will
return to the rich client interface we enjoyed before so many user interfaces
became browser based. Jeff concludes
by warning us that Microsoft .NET is a whole new ball game. He also points out that although it is
revolutionary and provides powerful tools today, .NET is not standing still
and we can expect more features to be added to it in the future.
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