Pro C# 2005 and the .NET 2.0 Platform (Expert's Voice) Review

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Pro C# 2005 and the .NET 2.0 Platform (Expert's Voice) ReviewIf you ask Andrew Troelsen that question, I bet he would guess "three pounds."
Overall, this is a pretty decent book on C# 2.0. As other reviews have said, it's not for beginners. With 4 years experience in C# .Net and Microsoft MCAD certification, I have found the technical level of the book to be right on the money for me. While much of the book (and C# 2.0) is the same as for .Net 1.1, the review has certainly not hurt me and has not been hard to read at all.
The examples are more correct than any technical book I can remember reading in a long time. And the code samples and downloads work! That almost never happens. Mr. Troelsen has done a great job in that regard.
From a content perspective, it is fairly thorough, touching on most of the new features of C# 2.0, but the level of coverage for the C# 2.0 specific features is at the same level as the 1.1 features.
One area that is very poorly covered is assemblies and assembly location. Mr. Troelsen spends 30 plus convoluted pages on the subject in Chapter 11 while Microsoft clearly describes the topic in 6 pages on their web site. If you don't know about assembly location in .Net before you read Chapter 11, you surely won't when you're finished. In fact, if you do know about assembly binding in .Net before you read it, you may not anymore when you finish reading Chapter 11.
Some key .Net version 2.0 features are not covered at all - for instance, there is no discussion at all of the BackgroundWorker class. This is a very useful new feature of .Net 2.0.
Because the book is not geared for beginners, it could have been better had Mr. Troelsen de-emphasized the 1.1 features slightly and used the recovered space for more emphasis on the 2.0 features. For instance, generics are only superficially covered.
So, technically, I think that four stars is a fair assessment of the book. Since Pro C# 2005 and the .NE 2.0 Platform is a technical book and not a novel, I rated it based on its technical merits, which is a good thing. Had I rated it on its readability, I would have given it 2 or 3 stars.
As one other reader said, the book is full of overly repeated phrases and misused words like factoid and deprecated. As my opening remarks eluded to, Mr. Troelsen, while being a master of C# and the .Net framework, is not a master of the segue. A little more plain-speak and a lot less Thesaurus would benefit the next version.
Way too many code samples start with something along the lines of "ponder the following" - 43 to be precise. Nearly 100 more are introduced with the phrase "as so:". How about using just "the following example" or "like this:"? Or telling the reader to "author the following code" when he means to enter or to input or to type the code. Mr. Troelsen already authored the code. If I claimed to author it, that would be plagiarism. Again, too much Thesaurus.
The grammatical faux pas that bugs me the most is "Do be aware" which occurs in various forms over 135 times in the book, or more than 5 times per chapter. I found about 5 places where the phrase seemed to be contextually appropriate. I suggest that he does this:
book = book.Replace("Do be aware", "");
In other words, just state the facts.
But he did mix it up some. At one point, he grabbed my attention with "Be very aware". Now, this must be an important fact (not factoid), right? Imagine my disappointment when I realized that the fact (not factoid) I was supposed to "be very aware" of was that whatever topic was being presented would probably never come up in the real world. So why, then, must I be "very" aware? Couldn't I be just sort of aware? Or better yet, why not skip the failed attempt at a segue and state the fact (not factoid) that the functionality was of minor significance?
One of the best reasons to buy this book is that, if you get the first printing of the third edition, you can pass a quick one-question test on APress' site and download an e-book in searchable PDF format. As you can tell from my review, the search feature works.
If you're a beginner looking to learn .Net, C#, or how to program, I would not suggest this book. If you're a practicing .Net developer with a background in C#, I would highly recommend the book until there are more technically comparable books that may be more readable available.
Pro C# 2005 and the .NET 2.0 Platform (Expert's Voice) Overview
C# 2005 changed the .NET 2.0 landscape. To name just a few improvements, C# now supports generics, partial types and nullable types when youre coding. And the framework boasts improved speed, data access, security, and scalability.

This book has been written to help you assimilate all this new information and realize its potential to make your coding life easier. It will keep you ahead of the curve. To make it easy for you to access this information, the book has been loosely grouped into five sections:

1. Introducing C# 2005 and the .NET 2.0 Platform explains the mechanics of .NET programming and the philosophy that lies behind it
2. The C# Programming Language outlines everything you need to know to start using C# 2005 quickly and efficiently. Object lifetimes, exception handling, genericsits all here
3. Programming with .NET Assemblies deals with one of the most important aspects of .NET programming: reusing code. This book shows you how to capture your code in reuseable external assemblies that you can call upon throughout your applications
4. Programming with the .NET Libraries guides you through them. Of course youre not expected to write every function yourself. The .NET Framework provides a vast array of .NET Libraries containing functionality that allows you to do everything from opening a file-stream to rendering graphical data to the screen
5. Web Applications and XML Web Services concludes the book by taking you away from console-based C# applications and investigating the myriad possibilities that become available when you blend C# 2005 with ASP.NET 2.0 to launch your applications onto the Internet


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Professional LINQ (Programmer to Programmer) Review

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Professional LINQ (Programmer to Programmer) ReviewAlthough it is a bit dry and dictionaryesque at times, kudos to Scott Klein on writing a solid book on LINQ and providing a lot of detail as to the specifics.
However, the editing of the book is absolutely terrible, particularly for one in the Wrox P2P series. There are numerous typos throughout the book, as well as areas where the content is simply wrong. For example, in one area (page 77), he describes a LINQ query as grouping by the last name, then displaying the first and middle names concatenated together, when in reality the code is grouping by the FIRST name and concatenating the middle and last together.
This might sound like I am nit-picking. However, when covering a topic like this where there are new and non-intuitive items (such as method syntax and lambda expressions) being discussed, it is critically important that the description of the example actually matches the example. Considering that the book rarely lists the syntax format itself, mismatches can lead to "learning" incorrect information.
Were the editing better, I would give this a solid 4 out of 5 stars.
Oh, on another note.. Be aware that this book was based on Beta releases.. Things have changed a little bit.Professional LINQ (Programmer to Programmer) OverviewProfessional LINQ introduces experienced programmers and database developers to LINQ database queries in their native VB and C# languages. Some of the topics covered include:
LINQ Queries
LINQ and the Standard Query Operators
Programming with XLinq
Querying XML with XLinq
Mixing XML and other data models
DLinq and Queries
LINQ over datasets
Interoperating with ADO.NET
LINQ and ASP.NET


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Practical Guidelines and Best Practices for Microsoft Visual Basic and Visual C# Developers (Pro-Developer) Review

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Practical Guidelines and Best Practices for Microsoft Visual Basic and Visual C# Developers (Pro-Developer) ReviewI think Amazon readers should know the true story behind the "Don't Waste Your Time or Money" review by Alex Papadimoulis.
The review in question was excerpted from a post in Mr. Papadimoulis's own blog. After I replied to his original post, Mr. Papadimoulis corrected some of his affirmations and admitted that his original comments were too harsh. (Quite unfairly, he didn't edit his Amazon review, though.) His review was so biased and groundless that many of his own readers complained and proved him wrong on many points.
CREDIBILITY: We authors never claimed we are in the same league as legendary scientists such as Knuth and Yourdon, but fortunately there are several degrees of credibility. Each of us has 20 years of experience writing real-world successful software apps, we work with .NET since earlier pre-beta versions, we consult for Microsoft and writes code for their largest customers in Italy. I have written nearly one hundred technical articles on magazines such as Visual Studio Magazine and MSDN Magazine, spoken at many .NET conferences in US and Europe, and authored several books (some of which are currently used in US schools and universities).
MSDN Regional Directors aren't volunteers, as Mr. Papadimoulis incorrectly writes. RDs are carefully chosen by Microsoft Corp. among the best .NET experts with the highest reputation. In fact, there are only 140 RDs in the world and we are very proud to be in this restricted group of experts. Mr. Papadimoulis's deliberate attempt to reduce the value of the RD status is representative of how biased he is.
THE "RIGHT" WORDS: Words such as "Do", "Don't", "Always", "Never", "Right", "Wrong" etc. are customary in guideline books and articles and Mr. Papadimoulis knows it, but he apparently forgets this detail in the attempt to make readers think we're unreliable. At the very least, he should reckon that we clearly state that our guidelines shouldn't be considered as valid in all cases, mention that we always explain WHY a guideline is recommended and that we often provide alternative rules and exceptions. Our book is about *practical* guidelines and our rules are much less rigid than what Mr. Papadimoulis maintains.
SPEED VS MAINTAINABILITY: Most of the examples that Mr. Papadimoulis provides are related to two contrasting techniques, for example the "as" operator vs. "is operator + casting" or "Compare" vs. "CompareOrdinal" method. It's important to notice that in all cases *both* techniques are simple to maintain and *both* are fully documented, thus recommending the faster one has no drawbacks whatsoever. (We never met a developer that would prefer to use a slow technique if there is an alternative.) Nowhere in our book do we suggest a faster technique that hampers maintainability or that is based on undocumented features.
THE THREADABORT EXCEPTION: Our guideline states that you should never catch this exception but that, if you really need to catch this exception, you should rethrow it immediately because the application can be in unstable and unrecoverable state. Our rule isn't rigid and is fully compatible with what Mr. Papadimoulis describes about cleaning up from a background thread. He either read that guideline too hurriedly or purposely omitted the exact text, in the attempt to make it look arbitrary. In either case his behavior as a reviewer is rather questionable, to say the least.
MSDN RECOMMENDATIONS: Ironically, *all* the guidelines that Mr. Papadimoulis considers as questionable are recommended by Microsoft in several MSDN articles. In other words, Mr. Papadimoulis is convinced that he knows the .NET Framework better than those who created it! I publicly asked Mr. Papadimoulis to explain this laughable contradiction but, understandably, he decided not to reply.
RELATIONAL DATABASE THEORY: I have a Computer Science degree and I am aware that Codd recommended using primary keys that have a meaning for the application. However, he did so 30 years ago, when there were no databases distributed over WANs or the Internet. This is where a book on *practical* guidelines differs from textbooks that are mostly theoretical.
The truth is, applying Codd's rules to ADO.NET and disconnected databases is often unpractical or even impossible. Even not counting ADO.NET and disconnected databases, many database experts (including Microsoft gurus) recommend using meaningless primary keys stored in 32-bit or 64-bit integer fields because they are *much* faster. This is one of the reasons why SQL Server and virtually all modern databases support primary keys of this kind. Or perhaps is Mr. Papadimoulis suggesting that we should ban these databases just because they don't religiously follow Codd's theory?
I could continue with other examples on how inconsistent his criticisms are. If you are interested, you can read the entire story - his first and second post, and my replies to both - by googling for "Papadimoulis blog Balena".Practical Guidelines and Best Practices for Microsoft Visual Basic and Visual C# Developers (Pro-Developer) Overview
Get the real-world coding guidelines, expert tips, and rock-solid guidance you need to take your development expertise to the next level. Drawing on their extensive programming and consulting experience, respected developers Francesco Balena and Giuseppe Dimauro share more than 700 programming best practices for Visual Basic and Visual C#. For each rule the authors explain the purpose, illuminate their whys and why-nots, highlight exceptions and alternatives, and provide real-world code samples.

Use the practical, reliable techniques in this book to:

Take full advantage of the Microsoft .NET Framework-and write reusable, robust, and security-enhanced code
Build software solutions that are both efficient and scalable
Implement rational and easy-to-use class libraries and object hierarchies
Adopt coherent coding styles and techniques to increase team productivity
Extend your programming expertise, problem-solving skills, and creativity!

Find best practices for working with:

assemblies
resources and localization
types and structures
fields
properties
methods *constructors
events
interfaces
exception handling
custom attributes
numbers and dates
strings
array and collection types
memory usage and object finalization
Windows Forms applications
Microsoft ADO.NET
Microsoft ASP.NET Web Forms and Web services applications
threading and synchronization
PInvoke and COM Interop
serviced components
remoting
security considerations
and more

Get code samples for Visual Basic and C# on the Web: For information on code samples and system requirements, please see Appendix C.


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Visual Basic .NET Bible Review

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Visual Basic .NET Bible ReviewI guess that I am the exception here, since everyone else seems to love this book. I thought that the book was not very well put together. Let me give you some concrete examples:
First, I think that it has already been said that this book does not have enough OOP. That is probably true. I have been doing OOP for so long that I didn't miss the omission, but it might be a little frustrating for a novice.
There are also a lot of little things that I noticed. Much of the book seems to be a reprinting of the .NET SDK documentation. Another thing that bothered me quite a bit is that in their tables that list the methods of classes, they didn't list the return values of the methods. This may seem like a little thing, but it meant that I had to go look everything up in the SDK anyway, so after a while I ditched the book and just used the SDK.
Another thing that I noticed was some incorrect terminology. As an example, Mr. Beres refers to the System.IO.Directory class as a "static" class. I knew what he meant, because I am also a Java programmer, but that terminology is not used in VB.NET. That could be very confusing because there is no such thing as a static class in VB.NET. VB used to support static methods, but static in this sense meant something completely different than what Mr. Beres is trying to express. I believe that he meant that the class consists only of Shared methods, not that it is a static class.
Again, I don't mean to nitpick here, because there were some good things, too. I have also written books for a competing publisher, so I know how hard it is to get everything just right (trust me folks, its not as easy as it looks!), and the authors have done an admirable job. It's just that better attention to detail as well as more consideration of the audience could have made this book so much better.Visual Basic .NET Bible OverviewContributors Include: Jim Chandler, Jacob Grass, Kevin Grossnicklaus, Uday Kranti, NIIT, Rob Teixeira, and Yancey Jones.Visual Basic .NET Bible covers everything you need to get up and runningwith this much changed version of Visual Basic and to begin creating applications for the new Microsoft.NET Platform.

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ASP.NET Website Programming: Problem - Design - Solution, Visual Basic .NET Edition Review

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ASP.NET Website Programming: Problem - Design - Solution, Visual Basic .NET Edition ReviewASP.NET Website Programming - Problem, Design, Solution
by Wrox Press

OVERALL ASSESSMENT
I had the pleasure of reading through this book over the course of a week, and I really let it sink it. I was very impressed with this work. This is a great book that the intermediate-to-advanced .NET developer should get their hands on. It's very well thought-out and the lessons are plainly stated, and easy to follow.

Authors Marco Bellinaso and Kevin Hoffmann describe a fictional content-based site that provides information for DVD and book enthusiasts, THEPHILE.COM. The book is essentially a long-form case study, diving into the architecture, infrastructure, and engineering behind an online publishing system.

The book takes a very honest approach and enforces a disciplined, structured methodology to writing an extremely practical (and cool!) n-tier Web app. The book also dives briefly into extending a few of THEPHILE.COM's various applications as desktop applications, which is a nice addition to make for a more well-rounded title.

You'll need a solid understanding of the .NET Framework, specifically ASP.NET, C#, and ADO.NET if you're to get the most out of this book, as it's definitely not for beginners. But it's a no-nonsense, well-prepared look at leveraging .NET Web technologies to your advantage.

There have been several books written to date profiling the design of an enterprise-level solution, like Sams' excellent "Building e-Commerce Sites with the .NET Framework." To cater to the masses, these books present a hypothetical business model, usually based around an e-commerce framework, and feature applications like shopping carts, inventory management utilities, etc. There really haven't been a whole lot of title that deal with simply-yet-prolific Web features like mass e-mail list managers, advertising engines, user polls, and article management - apps that are common to high-traffic Web sites.

On a personal level, I'm in charge of running several news-oriented Web sites, so on a personal level this book had more direct appeal to me, demonstrating how one could implement .NET technologies in efficiently managing content and interactives.
This is a very worthwhile buy (although Wrox apparently doesn't differentiate book length with book price, it being the typical US$59.95), and a great addition to your library. You'll read this one more than once for inspiration on your own projects.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE BOOK
The approach to designing the app is very intuitive - from promoting code reuse, object inheritance, modular component design in XML files, intelligent administration files, and much more. The end result is a big app that performs great and is largely self-sustaining.
The authors were very honest. This is most notable in their revelation that they didn't care much for the dragging-and-dropping DataAdapters within Visual Studio .NET, which leads to cumbersome code and a loss of control, preferring to code it themselves. I thought I was the only one. They also write THEPHILE.COM as if it were to be served on a commercial Web hosting service, which is a nice break from the assumption that we're all running massive data centers completely under our control in our offices.
The authors prominently cite Visual Studio .NET as their tool of choice for coding THEPHILE.COM, but don't neglect the text editor crowd, and present their work in a neutral way that doesn't alienate those choosing to stick to NotePad. This is a big advantage.
A best practices approach to enterprise application design is exhibited throughout the book...and this is something the reader will pick up on, using a consistent method that promotes code reuse, componentization, interchangeability, separation of code from content, and modularity. I particularly liked Marco and Kevin's description of the design of their data access tier for their poll feature.
The book is succinct, to the point, and beautifully written. Unlike Wrox titles in years past, the book is a very easy 518 pages (12 chapters, no appendices).
Although written 100% in C#, the code is quite easily transferable to VB.NET, for those interested.
Is it just me...or has Wrox changed the binding on its books? While Wrox titles (at least in my library) have been the first to contract Broken Book Spine Syndrome, the front and back covers seemed more durable, and the book held very well. Which was a much-welcome change, I assure you. And this just isn't because this is a shorter title from Wrox...their entire .NET v1.0 line seems to be better built.
The code download is well-documented, and both Marco and Kevin make themselves very accessible for feedback and help.

WHAT I FEEL NEEDS IMPROVEMENT
Although it's obvious in the book community that having documentation for the two major .NET languages in a single title (Visual Basic .NET and C#) is a tall order to fill (and most often doubles the size of a book), the fact that the book is exclusively in C# may detract some of those developers partial to VB.NET from partaking of what is a really good book. Perhaps the good folks at Wrox are considering releasing a VB.NET version?
THEPHIILE.COM at the time of this writing doesn't exist on the Web...which was a minor downer. I was hoping to see the app running full-speed prior to trying the code out for myself, in the vein of the IBuySpy and ColdRooster demo projects.
While it's unconscionable that each and every line of code would be put on paper, the book highlights some of the more notable code constructs.ASP.NET Website Programming: Problem - Design - Solution, Visual Basic .NET Edition OverviewWhat is this book about?
The C# edition of ASP.NET Website Programming Problem-Design-Solution has been phenomenally successful, gaining rave reviews for its unique approach and valuable content. The blend of theory and practice.
Now, due to demand from readers, a Visual Basic .NET edition of the book has been produced. This edition will offer the same blend of theory and practice that won so many fans for the C# edition. The book has been completely re-edited to ensure that it address the needs of ASP.net developers who use VB.net.
ASP.NET Website Programming shows you how to build an interactive website from design to deployment.
Packed with solutions to website programming problems, this book will have you building well-engineered, extendable ASP.net websites quickly and easily.
What does this book cover?
In this book, you will learn how to
Establish a solid, scalable website foundation
Provide flexible user accounts integrating with ASP.net's built-in security
Create message forums that enable formatted messages but defend against cross-site scripting
Generate revenue from advertising
Build a web interface for uploading, downloading, editing, and managing the files on your site
Add opinion polls, email newsletters, and news management
Deploy the finished site on a live server
Build websites using good, n-tier coding techniques

The site that you build is modular. You can slot the modules into your own Web site, modify them, or use them as examples of particular ASP.NET techniques.
The code will work with Visual Basic .NET Standard. However, Chapter 11 "Deploying the Site" uses some features found only in the full Visual Studio .NET. You will still be able to deploy the site, but the process will be less automated.

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Best Kept Secrets in .NET Review

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Best Kept Secrets in .NET ReviewAlthough I'm giving this book high marks for thoroughness of content, I did feel slightly dejected after expecting it, based on its title, to be a cornucopia of gems of little-known facts that .NET developers of varying levels could use. And while it certainly contains a lot of good remarks about how to work faster and/or more efficiently with have better performing code, it's not exactly a collection of "secrets".
I'm a somewhat experienced programmer, and a lot of what I read I found to be best practices that most introductory books on a variety of subjects will feature. The book's magic is that the tips are consolidated to within a single bound title, relieving the reader of needing to buy and read multiple titles to acquire such knowledge.
The book's finer points are evident in the many code samples being featured in both Visual Basic .NET and C#, and the book's succinct nature. Author Deborah Kurata doesn't spend hours poring over concepts; she just gets right to the point and lets you know how you can use a certain trick in your .NET programming. On that point, there's also a nice discussion of using regular expressions and operator overloading, and a good preview of refactoring in Visual Studio 2005 (at the time of this writing still in early beta).
However, I was disappointed in the fact that there wasn't a chapter on such secrets for web development with ASP.NET, and leans heavily towards those programming for Windows Forms (there are faint mentions of using web.config for web projects, but that's about it). This makes the book more applicable to desktop developers, and unfairly denies the browser crowd of using this book for their work.
Still, I came away with a couple of morsels that I'll take with me, such as the ability to use VB .NET's IsNumeric function in C# by referencing Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll. As with most APress titles, it's made the stand the test of time, with heavy paper and sturdy binding, so it's great as a desktop reference.
Overall it makes for a nice, quick read - priced pretty decently.Best Kept Secrets in .NET OverviewWhether you are a new or experienced .NET programmer, this book offers data management methods that you might frequently miss in the rush to complete projects on time. Author Deborah Kurata writes a handy, complete guide to lead you through hidden features and tricks buried within Visual Studio.The book focuses on daily code management, rather than deep .NET framework discussions. Kurata concentrates on efficiencies, presentation, controls, data management methods, and day-to-day code snags. So if you've developed inefficient habits or have been fighting the development environment, you will, mercifully, save hours in the team development cycle by putting the book's tips into practice.

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Programming Microsoft Visual C# 2005: The Base Class Library (Pro-Developer) Review

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Programming Microsoft Visual C# 2005: The Base Class Library (Pro-Developer) ReviewThere are only a few authors who writes about Microsoft technologies whose book you can buy without reading reviews. Francesco Balena is one of them (yes, Jeffrey Richter is another one). Both of these authors write for a particular segment of developers - those who have some programming experience and have tried some things on their own or have read some beginner's book and is ready for the serious stuff. The style is lucid, but no stone is left unturned on the topic being discussed. Both of them (Balena and Richter) also give practical coding advices which we wont find in the usual programming books. The approach is very pragmatic without losing the spirit of good programming idioms. Well, I am diverging. The point is - you dont need to read any reviews to buy a Balena book - rush to the store and get it. They are all gems.
Well, if you are still reading this and have not ordered it yet, it means you are interested in knowing a bit more about the book. This book is almost a C# port of his book Visual Basic 2005 book. The chapters go like this :
1. .NET Framework basic types - Balena speaks about the System.Object type, String types, Numeric types,DateTime type etc.
2. Object Lifetime - Memory management, Garbage collection etc.
3. Interfaces - Usage of common interfaces in .NET like IComparable, IDisposable etc.
4. Generics - Why we need Generics, how to write generic code and some advanced topics like support for Math operators.
5. Arrays and Collections - The different types of arrays, overview of System.Collections namespace as well as Generic collections.
6. Regular Expressions - This is an excellent tutorial of using regular expressions in .NET
7. Files, Directories and Streams - IO in .NET is a bit confusing, this chapter might help to clear things up.
8. Assemblies and Resources - Everything u need to know about assmeblies.
9. Reflection - Working with assemblies, modules, types - retrieving information about assembly at runtime and how to use that information.
10. Custom Attributes - how to create custom attributes, shows some scenarios for using custom attributes.
11. Threads - Thread fundamentals, synchronization, Thread pool etc. This is a very nice tutorial for using Threads in .NET
12. Object serialization - Serialization techniques - both built-in and custom.
13. PInvoke and COM Interop - Nice introduction, shows how to call plain C DLLs, and COM DLLs from .NET and also calling .NET components from COM. For more details get Adam Nathan's book.
Well, that is it... Not fit as your first C# book, but if you know some C#, this is a very good book for anybody.Programming Microsoft Visual C# 2005: The Base Class Library (Pro-Developer) Overview
Get the guidance you need to master the intricacies of the .NET Framework base class library using Visual C#—and learn best practices for developing robust code efficiently. With hands-on programming instruction, expert insights, and practical examples, professional developers learn how to customize classes and solve sophisticated development problems for any kind of application.

Discover how to:

Use generic types defined in the .NET Framework—or author your own—to solve recurring programming problems
Master regular expressions to perform complex text searches and sophisticated input validation
Use iterators, anonymous methods, and asynchronous delegates
Take code reuse to the next level with reflection
Use custom attribute to implement plug-in architectures and n-tier applications
Serialize complex objects to file or database fields
Address versioning issues with large programs and multiple executables
Apply multithreading techniques to help avoid resource-sharing issues
Work with unmanaged code and COM components by using PInvoke and COM Interop

PLUS—Get code samples on the Web


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Mastering Web Development with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Review

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Mastering Web Development with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 ReviewI purchased this book because I suddenly discovered that the personal ecommerce website that I had hoped to do in Macromedia Studio 8 couldn't be done because Macromedia Studio 8 doesn't support ASP.NET 2.0 - and ASP.NET 2.0 has some amazing new functionality that I won't give up to use Macromedia. So I decided I needed to use Visual Studio 2005. I played with Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition for a couple of weeks until Visual Studio 2005 Professional finally arrived. I was very impressed with VWD 2005 Express Edition but it lacks some features that you need for a full function commercial site. I am writing this review before I have gone into this book in sufficient detail to be able to answer my own questions because I feel that other potential buyers should be aware of the issues that I feel need to be resolved.
I saw this book and bought it here on Amazon because it seemed that it might have some valuable content on Visual Studio 2005 - and there is very little information available about VS 2005 at this moment except the Microsoft literature. Now I am confused about the book because I really can't determine what product the author was using when he wrote the book. The book is about a product called Microsoft Visual Web Developer - not about either Visual Studio 2005 Professional or Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition. It appears that there is valuable content here and although the product he was using was probably pretty close to Visual Studio 2005 Professional the author definitely writes about functionality that I cannot yet find in Visual Studio 2005 Professional. My issue is that I really would like to know up front what functionality that the book covers is not included in VS 2005. Of course it's possible that I will find a hidden configuration option in VS 2005 that will suddenly turn it into Visual Web Developer but in one place in the book the author says that he is writing a book on Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition - but I can't find reference to it anywhere. My guess is that he was writing on an early beta of VS 2005 but that a number of changes have occurred between when he wrote and what is being shipped. I am an optimistic and will give the book 4 stars now because of what appears to be valuable content, but that rating could go up to 5 stars or down to 2 stars depending on how close the material is to what I need to understand Visual Studio 2005 Professional. Also I was bothered by the fact that within 15 minutes after opening the book the binding began to fall apart.
I have contacted the author to try and answer this question but as of the writing of this review have not gotten back a response.Mastering Web Development with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 OverviewBe Right at Home in the World's Most Powerful Web Development Environment
For large-scale web application development, Visual Studio 2005 is the most capable product around. This book shows team members and leaders how to use its power in several key dimensions. You'll master dozens of built-in features for creating a large, high-performance website based on ASP.NET 2.0. You'll work seamlessly with dynamic data, both reading from and writing to databases. And throughout, you'll learn how Visual Studio 2005 supports a more efficient group process in terms of design, development, and deployment. And everything is brought together with the enterprise-scale example, "ABC Incorporated," that runs throughout the book. This is a book no web developer, and no web-dependent organization, should be without.
Coverage Includes
Reaping the benefits of master pages and themes
Generating site maps and other navigational aids automatically
Building a shopping cart application for your website
Adding search functionality to your website
Creating a flexible user environment using Webpart technology
Increasing application performance using client-side and server-side scripting technologies
Giving users the ability to change the website's theme to meet specific needs
Using components and controls to add special effects and user customization
Improving team efficiency using modern development and design techniques
Monitoring and responding to usage statistics
Combining technologies to get the best possible results from large applications
Making your site accessible to everyone

Master Standards-Based Web Development Techniques New to Visual Studio 2005
Discover How Visual Studio 2005 Solves Team Development Issues, Such as Source Code Control and Application Design
Simplify Database Application Development without Compromising Security or Reliability

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Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Design: CSS, Themes, and Master Pages (Programmer to Programmer) Review

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Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Design: CSS, Themes, and Master Pages (Programmer to Programmer) ReviewLet me get the bad out of the way first, so I can tell you why I think you should still consider buying this book.
1. Spends a bit of time on superfluous issues. For some of you, this might be a godsend, however, as development is often more than just coding these days.
2. Some fairly long code samples that fluff up the book without adding a huge amount. One illustration of CSS versus tables would be sufficient.
3. Not a lot of highlighting in code to point you to the points that have changed.
4. Some of the explanations are thin for those without a lot of experience in this particular topic.
Now that I got that out of the way, let's look at why this book should be a welcome addition to your shelf.
Reason 1 is it is the only book that focuses on this particular topic. Reason 2 is this topic is extremely important, although more often overlooked.
If you have an ugly, unusable personal site, it is not a big deal, as your mom will still visit. But, with business, it can be devastating. And, now, with accessibility lawsuits, it can be costly, as well.
Let's start from the beginning (a very good place to start, I hear).
The first few chapters are a bit of overview and express the importance of things like CSS, accessibility and good web design. None of these will make you an expert, but they will likely push those of you still in table design over to the dark side (CSS). The arguments for accessibility, including information about recent legal actions against websites, may be the kicker. Chapter 3 also focuses on using PhotoShop for designing a nice looking site. Some of the techniques will not apply to other image manipulation tools, but the basic ideas are useful for all.
Chapters 4 and 5 focus on CSS. In particular, chapter 4 talks about setting up a site that appears "tabled" in CSS and chapter 5 gives you a great overview, and some practical advise, about the CSS Friendly ASP.NET controls.
Chapter 6 talks about navigation and gives great practial advise on the web.sitemap file. This chapter was a godsend to me, as it finally gave me an epiphany on why roles were not working. This was actually a portion that fit #4 on my bad list, but sometimes seeing an example is enough to clue you in. :-)
Chapter 7 is focused on master pages. One of the biggest aids here will be the bits on design. The pages on passing information from master to child is also very useful.
Chapters 8 and 9 focus on themes. If you have a site that can be "skinned" different ways (by user or "site"), these chapters may well be worth the price of admission.
Finally, chapter 10. This is one of the best chapters in the book, as it brings all of what you have learned together. It shows how to use a single code base to work with a wide variety of browser targets, including mobile devices. And, unlike many books, it does it in a very practical, real world way.
There are also bonus appendices on Orcas (Visual Studio 2008) and Silverlight.
Summary: Overall, this is an average book. As the only book on the topic, however, it gets a slightly higher nod. As this is a topic I have tried to drill into people's heads (i.e., building a site is as much about user experience as making things work), I would like to see as many people pick up this book as possible. Someone might come out with a better one at some time, but learning this material is a wise thing.Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Design: CSS, Themes, and Master Pages (Programmer to Programmer) Overview

This book is for anyone who wants to learn about using .NET for web interface design. Beginner or hobbyist .NET developers can certainly get a good foundation of .NET web interface design by going through this book from cover to cover. However, more seasoned .NET professionals, especially if they tend to steer away from the GUI of their projects, can also pick up a thing or two by focusing on certain chapters that appeal to them. This book is meant to take a reader from the beginning of a project to the completion of the interface design. Along the way, concepts are illustrated to show how the different pieces play together. So, anyone who really wants to understand the concepts presented in this book will be able to do so by reading the entire thing. However, this book should also serve as a good reference after you have read it or, in some cases, in place of reading it.
All of the early chapters provide useful information and examples for any web developer. Many of the concepts presented after Chapter 4 are more specifically targeted at .NET developers. In the later chapters, the target audience is .NET developers or, at least, people who want to become .NET developers. In those chapters, you should probably have at least a basic understanding of the .NET Framework and some experience with Visual Studio 2005 (or possibly Visual Studio 2003). If you are completely new to .NET, you may find it useful to pick up a beginning ASP.NET 2.0 book before delving too deeply into those chapters. If you want to learn about .NET 2.0 web interface design, you are the intended audience.
It should be noted that all of the .NET code samples in this book are in C#. However, this shouldn't limit other developers, such as VB.NET developers, from understanding the concepts or being able to replicate the code in their own projects. The actual managed code examples are pretty limited and, when they are used, they should be fairly easy to port over to VB.NET.
This book covers the concepts serious developers need to begin designing cool and consistent web layouts. The early chapters focus on general web design standards that you need to grasp in order to move into the later chapters. Specifically, these concepts are:

Basic web design considerations (colors, fonts, images, accessibility, and so on) (Chapter 2)

Photoshop basics to get you started making your own graphics and color schemes (Chapter 3)

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and their use in web design layout (Chapter 4)

When you finish these chapters, you will have the basic shell for the project that you will continue to develop throughout the book. You will have the header graphic, color scheme, and CSS layout that you will begin to incorporate .NET-specific concepts to in the later chapters. This includes:

How to make .NET controls render accessible CSS code rather than their default: tables (Chapter 5)

Using the built-in controls of .NET to create easily maintainable and consistent site navigation (and how to make them render CSS divs instead of tables) (Chapter 6)

Creating your web site template with Master Pages (Chapter 7)

Creating themes and skins to style your .NET controls (Chapter 8)

Applying themes to your projects through various approaches, including base classing (Chapter 9)

The final "regular" chapter ends with you building an entirely new mobile device theme using all of the concepts learned in the previous chapters. In Chapter 10, you will start with modifying your graphic to better fit the resolution of your mobile devices. You will also learn how to modify your stylesheets and apply them programmatically to be used only for this theme. You will have a new Master Page and an entirely new theme. You will also see one way of switching themes based on your criteria (in this example, your criterion will be whether your client browser is a mobile device).
Beyond these chapters, you will get a "forward look" at some of the new technologies coming down the pipeline that affect these some of the material you learned in the preceding chapters. In Appendix A, you will get a glimpse at the upcoming release for Visual Studio, codenamed "Orcas." This will almost exclusively focus on the new CSS features because they are the most relevant to the other chapters of the book, and there are so many new features regarding CSS management in this release that they warrant their own chapter (nested Master Pages are also included, but CSS takes up most of the appendix).
Finally, with Appendix B, the Visual Studio Codename "Orcas" discussion is extended to include Microsoft Silverlight. You will learn how to create drawing object, incorporate images, animate your objects, and affect the rendered output through your managed code.
If you read this book from cover to cover, you should end up with a really solid understanding of the current technologies for .NET developers to create consistent and accessible web interfaces, as well as a feeling of excitement for the new stuff that should be coming soon to a computer near you.


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LINQ Unleashed: for C# Review

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LINQ Unleashed: for C# ReviewI question the value of the previous reviews. The review of Sept. 18 does not convince me the reviewer ever read the book.
The book starts off decently with an introduction to concepts related to LINQ. Then it falls off sharply when the author attempts to explain key words and the underlying logic of LINQ queries.
The table of contents has to be taken as a statement of intent. The chapters on LINQ for Objects are disappointing -- bulky examples without much analysis or explanation of LINQ syntax.
It all gets a bit rambling as the author, or editor if there was one, loses sight of the goal, which should be to instruct.
I give it 4 stars because it is no worse than some other books I've read.
LINQ Unleashed: for C# OverviewForeword by Darryl Hogan, Architect Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation Microsoft's highly anticipated LINQ query technology makes it easy to retrieve any information programmatically from any data source, no matter where it comes from or how it's stored. Using LINQ, developers can query objects, relational databases, XML documents, and ADO.NET datasets--and do it all directly from C# 3.0, leveraging the powerful capabilities of LINQ. This is a definitive guide to getting real-world results with LINQ, using C# 3.0 and Visual Studio 2008. In LINQ Unleashed, Microsoft MVP Paul Kimmel covers every facet of LINQ programming, showing how LINQ can help you dramatically improve your productivity and build more reliable, maintainable applications. Kimmel begins by reviewing the state-of-the-art C# programming techniques LINQ uses, including anonymous types, partial methods, and Lambda expressions. Next, using realistic examples and easy-to-adapt sample code, he details the most powerful new LINQ techniques for accessing objects, databases, and XML. You'll gain a deep and practical understanding of how LINQ works "under the hood"--and learn how to do everything from selecting data through integrating XML with other data models.Build efficient LINQ queries to .NET objects, SQL databases, and XML content Utilize anonymous types to reduce design time, coding effort, and debugging time Automatically generate .NET state machines with the new yield return construct Master LINQ query syntax, operators, extension methods, sorting, grouping, aggregate and set operations, and more Make the most of select--and use it in the business layer of your n-tier applications Query relational data stored in Microsoft SQL Server Use nullable types to eliminate unnecessary database access plumbing code Use LINQ with ADO.NET 3.0 and Microsoft's powerful new Entity Framework Extract XML data without the hassles or complexity of XPath Automatically construct XML from CSV files and other non-XML data Query Active Directory by extending LINQIntroduction 1Part I Getting Ready for LINQ 1 Programming with Anonymous Types 5 2 Using Compound Type Initialization 29 3 Defining Extension and Partial Methods 61 4 yield return: Using .NET's State Machine Generator 85 5 Understanding Lambda Expressions and Closures 97 6 Using Standard Query Operators 121Part II LINQ for Objects 7 Sorting and Grouping Queries 137 8 Using Aggregate Operations 151 9 Performing Set Operations 167 10 Mastering Select and SelectMany 185 11 Joining Query Results 211 12 Querying Outlook and Active Directory 239Part III LINQ for Data 13 Querying Relational Data with LINQ 265 14 Creating Better Entities and Mapping Inheritance and Aggregation 289 15 Joining Database Tables with LINQ Queries 309 16 Updating Anonymous Relational Data 349 17 Introducing ADO.NET 3.0 and the Entity Framework 383Part IV LINQ for XML 18 Extracting Data from XML 415 19 Comparing LINQ to XML with Other XML Technologies 437 20 Constructing XML from Non-XML Data 453 21 Emitting XML with the XmlWriter 463 22 Combining XML with Other Data Models 469 23 LINQ to XSD Supports Typed XML Programming 485Index

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ASP.Net MVC in Action Review

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ASP.Net MVC in Action ReviewThis book delivers the "how." Whereas so many books show the mechanics of MVC, this book shows you how to drive this implementation of the framework to it's limits. It's the difference between being taught the rules of football and being taught how to win a game; the difference between knowing how to turn on a light saber and knowing how to use the force.
Don't use this book for an intro to MVC. Use the free chapter of the nerd dinner book for that. That's a great intro. Use the web itself to research the mechanics of how the web works. Then pick up this book and be prepared to work *hard* chewing slowly and digesting each section as you let it change the way you think. Don't let the mere 350 pages fool you (when compared with other 600-700 page Goliaths); this book is content-rich. In the same way that the lessons of a truly great coach extend into so many non-sports areas of his/her players' lives, the ideas and knowledge expressed in this book extend well beyond ASP.Net MVC and push us forward into becoming better developers in any technology.ASP.Net MVC in Action Overview
The Model-View-Controller pattern—universally known as MVC—provides a stable, testable approach to web application development by separating the major functions—or concerns—of an application into independently defined roles.

ASP.NET MVC in Action is a comprehensive guide to MVC-based development using this powerful framework. It offers a clearly-written introduction both to the ASP.NET MVC Framework and to the MVC approach. The focus is on creating real, maintainable web applications—so don't expect toy examples and short snippets. The authors lead you from first-use through real-life scenarios.

One of the key benefits of the MVC approach is introducing a high degree of testability to your applications and process. ASP.NET MVC in Action shows you how to test each piece of your ASP.NET application and how to introduce principles of test-driven development into your process.

Because the framework is completely pluggable, you'll learn how to work with external Inversion of Control containers like StructureMap, Windsor, and Spring.NET and open-source persistence layers like NHibernate. Throughout the book, the authors sprinkle in MvcContrib, an extremely useful tool that provides common extensions so you don't have to write them yourself.

Along the way, you'll benefit from the wide-ranging experience of the authors, who have extensive experience with ASP.NET, Monorail, and Ruby on Rails. This book assumes that you already know how to build a standard ASP.NET application and presents most examples in C#.
What's inside?
Getting started with the ASP.NET MVC Framework
The model in depth
The controller in depth
The view in depth
Routing
Customizing and extending the ASP.NET MVC Framework
Scaling the architecture for complex sites
Leveraging existing ASP.NET features
AJAX in ASP.NET MVC
Hosting and deployment
Exploring MonoRail and Ruby on Rails
Best practices
Recipes

What reviewers are saying



"Shows how to put all the features of ASP.NET MVC together to build a great application."

-From the Foreword by Phil Haack, Senior Program Manager, ASP.NET MVC Team, Microsoft

"This book put me in control of ASP.NET MVC."

-Mark Monster, Software Engineer, Rubicon

"Highly recommended for those switching from Web Forms to MVC."

-Frank Wang, Chief Software Architect, DigitalVelocity LLC

"I'd highly recommend this to anyone who is serious about building web applications with ASP.NET MVC."

—Jeremy Skinner, ASP.NET developer and technical proofreader of the book

"...does a good job of not only showing you what to do, but also provides cautionary words to avoid poor practices that may lead to maintenance issues on non-trivial applications."

—Venkat Subramanian, NoFluffJustStuff Blogs

"I really enjoyed ASP.NET MVC in Actionand highly recommend it for a fresh look at the ASP.NET MVC Framework."

—David Hayden, MVP

"In the end [the authors] not only did an excellent job of putting together a great practical guide to ASP.NET MVC they also successfully embedded some subversive ALT.NET concepts that will hopeful make us all better developers. And at the end of the day that is a damn fine accomplishment."

—Bobby Johnson

"ASP.NET MVC in Actionwill guide you from your first project through advanced topics such as AJAX and deploying on suboptimal hosting environments. The writing style is clear and concise. Diagrams and code examples are abundant. I recommend it for anyone looking for a great resource for learning about or becoming a better user of the ASP.NET MVC framework."

—Nathan Stott, Partner and Software Engineer at Whiteboard-IT

"I'm very happy with this book. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in ASP.NET MVC. Getting the 'beyond the text' that comes with the CodeCampServer is just icing on the cake, truly."

—Chris Stewart, CompiledMonkey.com

"ASP.NET MVC in Action is a true masterpiece...The authors, Jeffrey Palermo, Ben Scheirman and Jimmy Bogard are all considered rock stars in the ASP.NET community and they have opened up the doors to their concert with ASP.NET MVC in Action."

—Mohammad Azam, Microsoft MVP


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Pro .NET Oracle Programming Review

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Pro .NET Oracle Programming ReviewAs someone who has written some .NET applications using MS Access and SQL Server I found the material to be appropriate and helpful as I am new to Oracle. Some things that I found especially helpful were:
- discussing the difference between an Oracle database and an instance
- what the various parameter files such as the tnsnames.ora and sqlnet.ora files are for and how to configure them
- the examples of how to use bind variables, pl/sql, and the advanced connections chapter
I do agree with the first reviewer that this book does somewhat sew together material from other sources (which I actually found helpful not a negative), but I disagree that the examples were not helpful or extensive enough - there were appropriate examples for each topic so far as I could tell.
All and all I would say this is a worthwhile book if you are new to Oracle and need to figure out how to get started developing applications for Oracle.Pro .NET Oracle Programming OverviewThis book never loses sight of its instructional mission: to effectively utilize the Oracle database from the .NET environment. Though Visual Studio and Oracle form a popular and powerful duo, there is a noticeable lack of written material in this area. The result: projects that often turn out with less-than-optimal solutions, due to lack of"synergy" between the application developer and the database.The primary code in the book will be C#, but the code download will also be available in VB.NET (with an appendix describing terms of use). Hence, this book provides a one-stop reference for any VS.NET programmer using Oracle. The author maintains solid focus on databases - emphasizing the use of specific features from a Visual Studio application. The text also includes crucial aspects of developing Oracle-based applications. Assumably, you are already comfortable with the VS.NET environment, and with the aid of this book, you will come to work effectively with the Oracle database as well.

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Practical Mono (Expert's Voice in Open Source) Review

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Practical Mono (Expert's Voice in Open Source) ReviewAt first glance, you would think that Practical Mono is yet another
introductory book about C# and Mono, but all of that drastically
changes the moment you look at the book's table of contents and see
the variety of topics it covers and the lengths to which the author
goes to describe the more important details.
The book gently eases the into what .NET and Mono are giving a
historical background for each. What I found very interesting is the
fact the author takes time to explain about .NET in the real world,
and ties this to Mono to give the reader a clear idea of how any why
Mono was started and what the reader can do to participate in this
effort.
Since a lot of people using Mono might be coming from a traditional
.NET environment, the author expects those people to be used to
certain development tools. To that effect, the second chapter in the
book is dedicated to introducing the reader to development tools that
can be used with Mono, especially Mono Develop. This gives the reader
some heads up about what can be used instead of their conventional
development tools and makes sure you start off on solid grounds.
Having gotten the user all set up and ready for action, the book then
moves on to introduce the author to C#. This is a subtle introduction
that eases the user into what C# is and how the language works.
Chapter 3 comes in very handy when you want to brush up on your C#
skills or are new to C#. the author continues to give the reader more
information about C# in a more detailed fashion in Chapter 4,
"Learning C#: Beyond the Basics". This chapter goes into some
nitty-gritty detail about C# classes, exceptions, and all round more
advanced C# topics.
Chapter 5 moves into the more exotic areas of .NET that deal with the
CLR, IL, assemblies, and the general assembly cache (GAC). This
chapter is very helpful if the reader wishes to acquire in depth info
of how the .NET environment works. Other discussed topics here are
garbage collection, application domains, and the class library. This
is one of those chapters that make this book an excellent
recommendation for both novice and advanced users of C# and .NET.
The first 5 chapters have made sure the user is very knowledgeable
about what Mono is, what .NET is, what C# is, and how all of them
relate to each other. They have also explained C# and introduced the
reader to its syntax and advanced features. Starting with Chapter 6,
the "Practical" bit from the books title starts to kick in quite
strongly. If its a book with both theoretical and real world
information that you want, then the coming chapters are really going
to quench your thirst.
Chapter 6 goes right into the heart of on of .NET's most desired
features, Windows Forms. The author explains what Windows Forms is,
what GDI+ is, how to implement a good user interface, and gives real
world examples of how to do all of that introducing the reader to
Windows Forms' various controls. A nice section that is mentioned in
several chapters is the "Whats New in Version 2.0?" section that
informs the reader about what to expect in the new version of .NET in
regard to that particular topic.
Because the author knows that not all people will be using Windows
Forms to design their graphical interfaces, he goes into GTK+ and
Glade and takes up a complete chapter explaining what they are and how
they can be used instead of Windows Forms. Chapter 7 serves as a
gentle introduction to the GTK+ and Glade world, and makes sure the
uses knows how to pick between Windows Forms and the GTK+ / Glade
combination.
After finishing Chapter 7, the user has a very good idea about how to
design a complete graphical user interface using freely available
tools (Windows Forms in Mono, and GTK+ / Glade using GTK# in Mono).
The author now moves on to describe ADO.NET, a heavily used feature of
.NET which is also available through Mono. This chapters enlightens
the reader and explains all aspects of using ADO.NET in applications
to connect and utilize databases. The particular example is geared
towards installing MySQL. Explanation is given both for Linux and
Windows, which also shows that Mono can be used as a .NET alternative
on Windows.
Since XML is constantly referred to as a "hot topic", the author does
not let us down and dedicates a complete chapter to discussing XML and
Mono. If the reader is new to XML, then he / she will be pleased to
find out that an explanation to what XML is and its history is given
at the beginning of Chapter 9: Using XML. The chapter deals with
looking at XML documents and traversing them. The author shows us a
real world example by applying this knowledge to create an RSS feed
class library.
Chapter 10 is for those of us with enthusiasm for networking and
remoting. This chapter, "Introducing Networking and Remoting", starts
by explaining what networks are and their general concepts, then dives
into how we can do networking related programming in .NET. We apply
this knowledge later on and create an RSS feed handler.
Another heavily used feature in .NET is ASP.NET. Chapter 11: Using
ASP.NET, explains what ASP.NET is, how it works internally, and how to
use it. This chapter shows the reader how to set up a web server for
ASP.NET (both the XSP web server and an external web server) and moves
on to show the user how a web service can be written. A lot of readers
will find this chapter very useful as web services seem to be an
increasing and expanding field right now.
Finally in Chapter 12: Using Advanced Mono Techniques, the author
dives into such topics like performance tuning, reflection, and using
threads. Advanced readers will particularly like this chapter as it
handles some of the "harder" more demanding features of .NET.
This book not only serves as a great learning experience that shows
you how things are done in the real world, it also as a general good
reference for C#, .NET, and Mono and several of their features.
Definitely one you should have in your bookshelf right by your work
desk.
I enjoyed reading Mark's book, and I would recommend it to
people that are either getting into .NET / Mono or have some
experience but would like to further it.Practical Mono (Expert's Voice in Open Source) OverviewThe Mono project is an open source implementation of the groundbreaking Microsoft .NET platform, backed by Novell and supported by thousands of contributors from around the world. Practical Mono offers readers a detailed examination of Mono and its many facets, such as building GUI-based applications with Gtk#, database interaction ADO.NET, and creating powerful applications with XML and Web Services. By embracing this implementation, users are able to take advantage of the powerful development paradigm, building Internet-enabled cross-platform applications based on freely available, open source technologies. It includes a briefing on the C# language, so even novice .NET programmers stand to gain plenty from this practical guide.

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Expert F# (Expert's Voice in .NET) Review

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Expert F# (Expert's Voice in .NET) ReviewThe Good
- Practical.
- High example density.
- Broad coverage of a lot of practical F# topics.
- Good depth on all the important practical stuff.
- I felt like I learned a lot, not only about F#, but about some cool C# features too.
- I felt like I'd be a lot more productive as a programmer if I could master the language.
The (not so) Bad
- Structurally, I initially got lost with some of the more complex examples. And it was straining to page back and forth re-reading things until I grasped the concepts. The density of information in the text sometimes makes it less valuable as a teaching aid and more valuable as a reference.
The (not so) Ugly
- I could not get one of the async examples to actually compile. I had to search the web for some hints to add declarations that seem to have been omitted from either the example code or F# implementation itself. In short, the example code, my development environment, F# itself, of some combination thereof was missing what appears to be an extension method for WebRequest.GetResponseAsync. I had to code it myself. But once I did, it worked! (This might not be a criticism of the book.)Expert F# (Expert's Voice in .NET) Overview
Expert F# is about practical programming in a beautiful language that puts the power and elegance of functional programming into the hands of .NET developers. In combination with .NET, F# achieves unrivaled levels of programmer productivity and program clarity. This books serves as

The authoritative guide to F# by the designer of F#
A comprehensive reference of F# concepts, syntax, and features
A treasury of expert F# techniques for practical, real–world programming

While inspired by OCaml, F# isn't just another functional programming language. Drawing on many of the strengths of both OCaml and .NET, it's a general–purpose language ideal for real–world development. F# integrates functional, imperative, and object–oriented programming styles so you can flexibly and elegantly solve programming problems, and brings .NET development alive with interactive execution. Whatever your background, you'll find that F# is easy to learn, fun to use, and extraordinarily powerful. F# will help change the way you think about and go about programming.

Written by F#'s designer and two active contributors, Expert F# is the authoritative, comprehensive, and in–depth guide to the language and its use. Designed to help others become experts, the book gives a thorough introduction to the F# language from quick essentials to in–depth advanced topics such as active pattern matching, aggregate data types and operators, sequence expressions, lazy values, mutable data and side–effects, generics, type augmentations, functional decomposition and code organization.

The second half of the book is devoted to examining the practical application of F#, providing elegant solutions to common programming tasks includinguser interfaceimplementation, data access, web and distributed programming, symbolic and numerical computations, concurrent programming, testing, profiling, and interoperability with other languages. The latest hot developments in F# and .NET are also addressed, including Active Patterns, implicit class construction, integration with LINQ over relational data, meta programming and useful tips for working with Visual Studio and F# command–line tools.

The worlds foremost experts in F# show you how to program in F# the way they do!

What you'll learn
How to use F# for functional, imperative, and object–oriented programming
How to code elegant F# solutions with expert technique and style
How to develop Windows, web, graphics, and database applications in F#
How to do numerical, concurrent, lexical, and symbolic processing in F#
How to interoperate with C and COM

Who this book is for
This book is for anyone interested in state–of–the art .NET programming. Professional programmers will find it engrossing. F# provides invaluable insight into the future of both C# and VB, which are now adopting some (but far from all) of the functional features of F#. Once they learn F#, few feel like returning to either C# or VB. The academic community will find F# the answer to a decades–long prayer: a language suitable for teaching computer science that also excites and empowers students because it can be used not just in the classroom, but also in the real world.


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Pro Ajax and the .NET 2.0 Platform Review

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Pro Ajax and the .NET 2.0 Platform ReviewPro Ajax and the .NET 2.0 Platform gets high marks from me because it is concise, informative and easy to follow. After reading the first three chapters I had a clear understanding of what Ajax really is. Author Dan Woolston has extensive experience with AJAX and he seemed to share it all here without overwhelming this reader.
Woolston did not waste my time in getting me up to speed. In the first three chapters I learned how to write my own reusable (cross browser) JavaScript functions that will work together to execute an Ajax call.

Of course I might rely on one of the various existing frameworks to do this for me. However, now I know what's going on under the covers and I can make an informed decision about what Ajax to use and when. I know exactly what is happening when Ajax is implemented and why.The book also does a nice job of covering CSS and the DOM (document object model). As you know (or will know after reading), these combine with JavaScript to create the foundation of Ajax! Once you understand how they work together you'll know more about Ajax than 90% of your developer friends.
Excellent Feature #1: The overview of JavaScript, CSS and the DOM is fantastic. I really appreciated the fact that it was concise and dead-on accurate in addressing the specific elements that a .NET developer needs to understand in order to code Ajax.
Continuing on, after the book had me up to speed with Ajax, it went into n-tier design. This is important because, in theory, a programmer can go hog wild on Ajax and break tons of rules regarding sound application architecture. So I was impressed that Woolston transitioned directly into best-practices for how and when to use Ajax.
The first third of the book covers Ajax theory and best-practices. With Ajax, one size does not fit all. Therefore, chapter seven includes overviews of many popular Ajax frameworks including non .NET frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, WebORB, xajax (PHP) and Direct Web Remoting (Java). It also covers .NET frameworks including Ajax.NET, Anthem and Atlas.
The other two thirds of the book are devoted to Ajax programming concepts. The author uses the Anthem framework for most of this coding. Anthem is an open-source, .NET framework in C# that is compatible with ASP.NET 1.1 and 2.0. It is extremely lightweight, requiring only one class file for core functionality.
Excellent Feature #2: The book's code walkthroughs are based on a fully functional n-tier sample application that you can download free. The sample application uses the AdventureWorks database which is also a free download from Microsoft if you don't already have access to it.
You might think that some .NET features and topics lend themselves to Ajax technology and therefore should be covered in more detail. You'd be right. Woolston sets aside complete chapters on Web services, Custom Controls, ASP.NET Security and Web Parts.
Excellent Feature #3: When you're done learning how to build your own Ajax, there are two chapters devoted to debugging and testing Ajax.
One of the last chapters was my favorite. Chapter 19 is all about usability. As you may know, Ajax solves many usability problems. But can also create new ones. Woolston addresses the good, the bad and the ugly.
The book provides ideas and examples of good Ajax. The author has test-driven many Ajax controls and shares his trials and tribulations. This feedback no doubt will save developers valuable time.
The book also discusses potential pitfalls of using Ajax. Woolston tackles cross-browser compatibility issues and how to best overcome them. He also talks about how to deal with the browser's back button. How to handle browsers with disabled JavaScript and how to work past the problem of pageshifting.
Some of the other usability topics covered in Chapter 19 include Ajax menus, bookmarking, type-aheads, connected controls, code visibility and page paradigms.
Suffices to say this book packs a big Ajax punch. I highly recommend it to any of my peers who are interested in building Ajax functionality into their web applications. This book is applicable to .NET developers who are working with ASP.NET 1.1 or 2.0. In my opinion, web developers of any skill level will find it helpful.Pro Ajax and the .NET 2.0 Platform OverviewAjax has swept through the IT world like wild-fire over the last 8 months. It's being deployed by major corporations across the world to improve the user-experience of their websites (e.g. Google maps, Flickr, Google Suggest and Amazon Discuss). This is only the beginning of its potential. It seems likely that within the year Ajax techniques will become one of the corner stones of contemporary web development. No website will want to be without them and no web designer will want to pass up on these skills.This book follows on from Apress' extremely successful Foundations of Ajax title. It takes the reader on a detailed journey through the Ajax technology and shows them how to integrate Ajax with Microsoft's popular .NET 2.0 Framework to produce their own implementations of the functionality they're beginning to see on the web. The keystone of the book is practicality. We show people how to put theory into practice and bring Ajax to their web applications in a professional manner.Crucially, for a book in such a rapidly moving field, we also look ahead to when Microsoft will unveil it's ‘Atlas' Ajax toolkit for Visual Studio 2005. We tell people what to expect and how they can begin preparing for it.

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Pro ODP.NET for Oracle Database 11g (Expert's Voice in Oracle) Review

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Pro ODP.NET for Oracle Database 11g (Expert's Voice in Oracle) ReviewOverall the book has some very good examples and explanations. The introduction is very good as well. However, there are a bit too many redundant examples that seem to make the book thicker unnessarily. That being said, sometimes the detailed examples were very helpful.Pro ODP.NET for Oracle Database 11g (Expert's Voice in Oracle) OverviewPro ODP.NET for Oracle Database 11g is the "go to" book for .NET programmers wanting to use the Oracle Database. The authors are well-known for their expertise in the Oracle Data Provider for .NET. A highlight of the book is the author's application of "Gang of Four" design patterns to ODP.NET programming.

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ASP.Net Ajax in Action Review

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ASP.Net Ajax in Action ReviewI don't normally give a rave review about books unless I was really satisfied with the book, but this book really is a great book.
First of all, apart from it being an ASP.NET AJAX book, one of things I consider when buying a book is the overall flow of the book - the flows between paragraphs and the flows between chapters. On that note, ASP.NET Ajax in Action has a great flow. Especially the transitions of the book and the divisions of the chapters were well put into the book, so it could feel like reading a novel in some cases.
On the technical side, I like technical books that have a lot of examples that make good sense. This book is full of examples, which is very imporant for understanding a new technology. Another thing I like about th book is the detailed examplanations of the ASP.NET Ajax foundations. For example, it doesn't talk about UpdatePanel until Chatper 6 and 7, which most of ASP.NET developers like to just use for quick development. However, this book does a good job of illustrating the overall architecure of the Ajax framework, and does not neglect that Javascript is also a big part in developing Ajax-enabled websites. Unlike other ASP.NET Ajax books, this book has a few chapters dedicated to client-centric ASP.NET Ajax development, which is necessary for building hard-core ajax sites and components.
To conclude, this book is a must-have for asp.net developers and you can use it as both a reference book and a learning material.ASP.Net Ajax in Action Overview
Ajax has revolutionized the way users interact with web pages today. Gone are frustrating page refreshes, lost scroll positions and intermittent interaction with a web site. Instead, we have a new generation of fast, rich, and more intuitive web applications. The ASP.NET AJAX framework puts the power of Ajax into the hands of web developers. ASP.NET AJAX, formerly called Atlas, is a new free framework from Microsoft designed to easily add Ajax features to ASP.NET applications. With this technology, ASP.NET developers can easily build more interactive and highly-personalized web applications that work across all most popular browsers.

ASP.NET AJAX in Action is a fast-paced, example-rich tutorial designed for ASP.NET web developers and written by ASP.NET AJAX experts Alessandro "Garbin" Gallo, David Barkol, and Rama Krishna Vavilala. This book introduces you to Ajax applications and to the ASP.NET AJAX technology. Beginners will appreciate the clear explanations of key ideas and terminology. Intermediate and advanced ASP.NET developers will find a no-nonsense learning source and well-organized reference.

ASP.NET AJAX in Action offers a rich set of examples and meticulous explanations. The extensive code samples are accompanied by accurate and rigorous explanations of the concepts behind development with ASP.NET AJAX. In this book, you will discover how to use
Microsoft Ajax Library Partial rendering with UpdatePanels Advanced client and server techniques Ajax Control Toolkit
If you are a web developer looking to bring your web pages to life and to enhance the user experience, this book is for you.

ASP.NET AJAX in Action will give you with the knowledge and tools you need to more easily craft the next generation of Ajax applications. With the help of the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX framework, Ajax development has never been easier and more instinctive for both client-script developers and ASP.NET developers alike.


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