Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as should be!
Review: I well remember Richter's previous Win32 book, "Programming Application for Microsoft Windows", and its precise and detailed treatment of low-level windows functioning (but, unfortunately, I recall its dry, non-imaginative and sometimes unclear stile, as well!).When .NET appeared, I was looking for a book that would treat .NET and CLR in the same in-depth manner. Richter's book seamed the natural choice, knowing him as an author far from being shallow. But, after reading "Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming" I have to confess It didn't meet my expectations. Even though this book does treat .NET and CRL in sufficient detail, some things were not even mentioned: nothing is said about multithreading, thread pool, or asynchronous delegates, their creation and usage; you can't read anything regarding serialization and its functioning (while in the Exceptions chapter an example of exception-derived type - for understanding of which serialization knowledge is important - emerges out of blue). Therefore, I can't help asking myself how is it possible to call this book ".NET bible" (as some guys at Amazon.com like to label it), when such important things that themselves deserve full chapters are omitted. In short, this book is far from bad, but it is incomplete, and some important stuff is not even mentioned. Later I realized that Richter has written on some of these topics in his articles ..., but I can't figure out why he didn't put them in the book??? I hope that missing details will be included in further editions, but it pisses me off it isn't already so. As it is, clearness and usefulness of this book is diminished.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing "Applied" about this book
Review: As a Computer Scientist, there is a certain level of pride associated with understanding the inner workings of compilers, memory management, object oriented programming, etc, and this book offers a fine disucssion of the inner working of the CLR and .NET framework. Its unlikely that a professional Software Engineer would have anything bad to say about such well presented "intellectual" content, but I am pragmatic and bought this book for an *applied* approach to USING the .NET framework, which is why I say this book has missed the mark. If the book were titled "Detailed understanding of CLR and .NET underpinings" or "CLR for Compiler Geeks" then this book would get five stars. But thats not why I bought this book. I bought it for useful examples (or at least useful annotated reference material) to help me in my .NET development. This book does not deliver. This book would be a good textbook for an imaginary 400-level CS elective course titled "Microsoft CLR". The course would not have any labs. I avoided the temptation to give myself the professional "warm fuzzies" by giving this book five stars for its fine discussion of CLR/.NET internals, but I'm in the trenches and need more pertinent information to get up to speed on .NET pronto. I will return to this book after a year of working with .NET to fill in the gaps in my knowledge or as bedtime reading material. I was expecting a book along the line of OReillys "Nutshell" series that are chock full of useful exmaples with terse, reference style descriptions. This book is more conversational in its presentation and reading it feels like a waste of time. This is not a good first (or second) .NET book. For now I am better served by the .NET Framework SDK. Two years ago, I took a course from another member of the Wintellect Team (Jeff Prosise) and was very impressed with his knowledge. I should have purchased Prosise's .NET book. Again, this gets 2 stars because its title is deceptive.
Rating: 
Summary: Too good
Review: I have been from Java background and earlier experience was with core C++ on unix and little bit of Visual C++ coding. This book is a great book to understand the .NET internals.
Even though it takes sometime to come to C# language syntax, it is worth to read the first half.
I would definitely buy Jeffrey's other books for reading..
Rating: 
Summary: 5 stars dont do justice
Review: This book is probably the best book I have read on software development. The author seems to anticipate whats going on in the reader's mind and provides information that is as in-depth and accurate as it is a joy to read.
In my opinion anyone who cares about development in .NET should read this book first.
It is basically more on .NET framework rather than on any programming language (and maybe for that reason leaves out Threading, IO etc) and should be complemented with a good language book like Programming C# by Jesse Liberty and of course the other goldmine .NET Remoting by Ingo Rammer
Rating:
Summary: Good but not best .NET book
Review: Richter knows his subject and writes well. But, like previous reviewers, I found the use of "Applied" in the title deceptive. Most programmers would never apply this low level stuff. As an experienced programmer, I found "Microsoft .NET for Programmers" by Fergal Grimes to be a much more useful (applied!) book. ...
Rating:
Summary: I'd rate it a 7 if that were an option
Review: If you look at all the book reviews, there are a few people who groaned that the title is misleading (which it can be - but please read the table of contents people), and one guy who is religious about his OReilly books. EVERYONE ELSE (including myself) agrees that this is simply the best "under the covers" look at .Net out there. Get a GOOD grasp on .Net first, then pick up this book and hang on. I'd rate it a 7 if that were an option.
Rating:
Summary: The Nuts and bolts of .NEt
Review: Since the launch of .NET the market has been flooded with .NEt books by wannabes. This is essentially because of the relative simplicity of the platform over the DNA architecture. But none taught you the basics they only skimmed past showing you How-tos. This is the only one that delves deep into .NET. Mind it never teaches you .NEt. If you are a absolute fresher stay away. If you had been coding for a while and asking yourself the 'Whys' and 'Hows' well Jeff has all the answers for you in this relatively easy going lucid coverage. His explanation of delegates and events and the Garbage collection is mind blowing. None, I repeat none has taken the pain Jeff had to bring .NET to your backdoors. An absolutely fascinating book ever written on .NET
Rating:
Summary: From an old Developer
Review: I got this book as a gift from microsoft , i have found it very informative but only for those who already have knowledge about programming other wise you will got confused.
Rating:
Summary: Check OReilly First
Review: This book is better than most microsoft press books, but as a rule of thumb always check OReilly first. Microsoft Press is known for fluff - even books people consider the bibles are fluff when compared to OReilly. After reading a few OReilly pages you'll say 'gee that was simple'. I don't work for OReilly, I've been a Unix programmer for 15 years and used OReilly for a long time. I am now switching to .NET. I was very disappointed when I tried to use MSFT Press books to learn anything. Steve
Rating:
Summary: Excellent overview
Review: This book is an excellent overview of the .Net Framework from an experienced programmer's point of view. If you're looking for a how-to-program-.net bok, then you're better off purchasing a different title. If you want to know how and why .Net works, then this book is for you.
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