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Summary: Microsoft marketing materials...
Review: Although Chappell did an excellent job of presenting technical concepts, after awhile I got the impression I was reading a Microsoft press release rather than an objective analysis of .NET. He seemed very uncritical of Microsoft's attempt to reinvent the Internet in their own image. There was little discussion of .NET's technical shortcomings, its potential impact on the developer community, nor of its corporate context: Namely, Microsoft's history of releasing bug-ridden, badly-planned software that later proves to have gaping security holes.Particularly amusing was Chapter 8's discussion of the My.NET architecture. Chappell raises the question of what would keep Microsoft from accessing and using Passport customer data without permission. His only answer is basically, "Well, they wouldn't DO that. They'd get in trouble." Yeah, right...
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Summary: Need to sell .NET to your manager?
Review: Back in the 90's, David Chappell wrote one of the Microsoft classics, Understanding ActiveX and OLE. That book marked David as an author who can communicate complicated topics in an organized and understandable form. When I heard that he had created a similar attempt for .NET, I had to check it out. This book is an explanation of key tenets of .NET and how the .NET technologies are related. The text is also mixed with straight shooting opinions, real-world application and analysis, and comparisons to other competitive computing environments. If you have had a curiosity about something in .NET, David probably addresses it in one of the analysis sections. The Microsoft camp and the Java camp alike will appreciate David's frankness as he tells it like it is, whether a Microsoft weakness or strength. This book should be intended for:
* Those who need an overview of .NET like technical managers.
* Non-Microsoft developers who want to see what all the fuss is about. If you want to score some points with your boss, provide this book as it is destined to be the next technical manager classic. What David did for COM, he has now done for .NET.
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Summary: Excellent overview, with details
Review: David Chappell covers the whole .NET architecture, from the CLR to the new features in C# and VB.NET, to the massive libraries, and everything inbetween. The book is very readable, and manages to cover it all while still going deep enough to gain a serious base of knowledge to build on in the future.
After reading the book, I feel I understand the overall architecture and thinking behind .NET, and now I can dive into using it by picking up an area-specific book (like VB.NET, or C#).
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Summary: Beats around the bush a lot!
Review: David Chappell got rave reviews for his old book "Understanding ActiveX and OLE" - which I second, whole heartedly. This book on the other hand is a confusing mess on what he wants to say. His explanation of what a web service is in the first chapter is mediocre. He goes round in circles explaning the same thing in different ways that make the explanations really confusing (chaps 4 and 5). This book needs work both in terms of the way he says it and the content itself. Chappell claims that this book is an overview. ... p
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Summary: An excellent book!
Review: David Chappell is one of the best technical authors today and this is probably his best book. It's an excellent overview of.NET that is both objective and interesting to read. NET is a critically important to Microsoft professionals. Unfortunately, it's also a huge platform that can be daunting and downright confusing. Chappell's .NET book cuts right through Microsoft's marketing dribble and explains exactly what the platform is and why its important. The book provides enough technical depth to give you a good understanding of the .NET platform without getting lost in what is obviously a very complex set of technologies. As an architect, developer, and author I give this book my highest recommendation. If you are trying to get your fingers around the .NET platform, this is the book you should read.
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Summary: A Guide for Sifting through the .NET Maze
Review: David Chappell presents an extensive overview for the .NET challenged. .NET has been presented by today's media as being an all-inclusive, yet elusive, "thing" that is going to change computing as we know it. The author concedes that much of the world that was pre .NET has indeed changed yet gives specific analogies and descriptions to show the average IT manager, developer, or end user exactly what to expect. The strength of "Understanding .NET" is its ability to address the breadth of .NET from server architecture on the Windows 2000 platform and the Common Language Runtime(CLR), to specific tools like ASP.NET, VB.NET, C#.NET, and JScript.NET to Web services without trying to overdeliver with application specific code. This is not a coder's reference ... but more of a roadmap for the .NET uninitiated. It is a great beginner's overview into everything Microsoft has to offer in its latest paradigm shift - .NET.
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Summary: Excellent resource
Review: Great flow and excellent content in this easy-to-read and easy-to-follow book on .Net. Highly recommend it for technical managers as well as business users interested in an introduction to .Net
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Summary: Great introduction to .NET for the professional developer
Review: Having worked with the .NET platform since the pre-beta, I was curious to see what kind of overview David Chappell would bring to the table. I found this book to be an excellent introduction to the important changes that .NET brings, particularly geared to the professional developer. The book is much more technical than I expected, but Chappell's writing style is clear and easy to follow even on difficult concepts. This is not a "how-to-code" book, although there are code examples here and there. Instead, it serves basically 2 purposes. One, it introduces the new features and capabilities that the .NET framework brings to development. Two, it speaks to the paradigm shift for a developer to move from a Windows DNA (VB 6, C++) method of programming to programming in .NET. There are several things I really liked about his book. One, there are many margin notes that cover the basic idea of each paragraph or section, making it easy to skim and find relevant information, especially for someone in more of a management role. Two, there are a number of "side-note" articles that further explain certain concepts or talk about certain frequently asked questions, such as "VB.NET or C#," "Is ASP.NET too hard?" or the inevitable comparisons to Java. In fact this book does an excellent job at bringing up similarities and differences between the .NET framework and Java. It is the author's view that it is beneficial to the development community, assuming .NET catches on, to have 2 strong platforms competing and making each other better. Overall, this book is right up there with what I feel is the best VB migration book (Moving to VB.NET by Appleman) in providing a clear roadmap to the many developers taking the plunge into .NET. It is much more broad in scope, but strikes a good balance between technical information, commentary, and a teaching spirit. If you or your team is starting to look at the .NET framework and want to know what you are getting into, this is a great place to start.
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Summary: Understanding .Net A Tutorial and Analysis
Review: I am very pleased to highly recommend "Understanding .Net A Tutorial and Analysis". To quote the author ".Net is Huge." Which, as a software developer, was my first impression too! This book successfully addresses the first two .Net issues. What is it? Where do you start exploring? "Understanding" is not a code intensive cookbook describing the "how to's" of the .Net system. "Understanding" does tackle the technical management issues from a general overview to a very detailed bullet by bullet explanation of the major components, their purpose and how they fit into the bigger .Net picture. Most concepts are summarized on margin notes and major concepts are analyzed as a half and full page breakout discussions designed to put the concept in perspective. This technique makes the book true to its title and an interesting read. If your company is considering .Net buy an extra copy for your boss. Pat Tormey PE
Foursquare Solutions Inc.
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Summary: Excellent resource
Review: I needed to learn the .NET architecture and programming languages. I wanted to learn about the .NET architecture before learning the languages, so I read this book first. As the title in my review states, this is a MUST HAVE book for people learning .NET. This book explains how the .NET architecture works in a simple to understand manner. An added feature of this book is the "extra asides" in each chapter discussing topics that are important to IT professionals, such as "Java Bytecode versus MSIL", "Why Enterprise Servers are not .NET", and "Making .NET Cross-platform". This is the kind of information an IT professional needs when one is trying to sell a .NET solution to an IT manager or executive whose only exposure to technology is what s/he saw on "Tech TV". It is also the kind of information that assists the IT professional who works on other platforms/languages (mainly Java programmers) with understanding .NET in relation to what one does. Also, I believe that if a programmer/software engineer new to .NET understands the architecture, then the programmer/software engineer will have an easier time with learning and using the .NET languages (Well, I find that to be true in my case). This book will give the new .NET developer or engineer a good foundation to allow one to make informed decisions when designing a .NET application. As an IT professional and adjunct university professor, I would highly recommend this book to IT professionals learning .NET, and I would highly recommend this book as a textbook to be used in a school teaching .NET in their curriculum.
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