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Essential .NET, Volume I
After chapter one's history of the evolution from COM to the CLR, the book takes a bottom-up approach to the CLR, starting with a deep and detailed six chapter look into the core elements of the platform. Chapter two begins with assemblies, the programmatic units in the CLR, and the implications of their construction. We learn how they are versioned, loaded and built, and why therefore they may be written in as many .NET languages as required. There's real depth to the material here -- you really do touch the bottom of the abyss, so to speak -- but it's countered with occasional levity that keeps this a readable book instead of a dense reference manual. The same is true of all the text. To wit, there's even some irony; "To allow old dogs to avoid learning new tricks, there is finalization," he declares in the next section on the Common Type System.
It's here that we discover how different types and interfaces are distinguished from themselves and from one another, and how their variations and relationships are kept separate by the CLR. It's refreshing to note that the proverbial big picture is never very far away from the commentary. After taking time to explore the avenues for types and interfaces, Box notes that types themselves aren't very interesting until you start working with instances of those types, and we're off again working through another thirty pages on how object instances preserve a sense of identity, how they are cast into other types and how they incorporate themselves into the concepts of reflection and metadata. Only then do we look at the actual lifecycle of an object, its creation, modification and disposal. The attention to detail is great, and there's little ambiguity in the text, but with that comes a slowness to this section that may leave readers frustrated.
One recurring theme of the book is the idea that while there is a very proper way and set of rules for doing things, there will always be circumstances in application development which call for exceptions to be made to those rules and made possible by .NET. This is true at a small scale and, as chapters six and seven prove, at a large one too, covering as they do how the CLR calls and runs methods first on a single machine and then over a wire. How does the runtime treat methods called explicitly, implicitly through a delegate, asynchronously, or as a combination of the three? How do remote calls and types bridge whatever gaps they must cross and activate the remote objects and methods they're targeting? The answers are here.
Essential .NET reflects Box's pride in .NET and also his slight dissatisfaction with it. You can sense that while he knows .NET version 1 is an improvement over COM, it's not as good as it could be and things are still be done in v2 and beyond. Chapter eight's look at AppDomains and in particular its discourse on threading within and through AppDomains is a good example of this. Meanwhile, we finally come full circle in our investigation of the CLR, seeing how the assemblies we built in Chapter 2 are resolved and executed within AppDomains. Exceptions to rules being included, we also see how objects references are marshaled across AppDomains for inter-application communication if this is required.
The last two chapters look at wider topics around the CLR in as much detail as they can for topics which have entire books dedicated to just them. Chapter nine covers code-access security and chapter ten topics which are not of the CLR but which be can be addressed from within a .NET application: explicit memory management, using p/invoke to import COM methods from DLLs and so on. Both are concisely written and to the point, but unsurprisingly leave you feeling like there's more to these topics than is covered here. Chapter nine is a great and clear introduction to code-level security, for example, but you'll get a lot more out of Michael Howard's book, Writing Secure Code if you want to know more.
Essential .NET isn't an easy read but everyone should try to read it at least once. Focusing on the CLR itself and how it deals with the components of an application means that it truly is aimed at the community of .NET developers as a whole (including those building and using alternate implementations of the CLR). The provided code examples are expressed in C#, but this is incidental, really, and won't stop VB.NET, J# or any other developers getting a great deal out of this book.
This is a dense, complex volume that requires a fair amount of effort to understand and use, and to some extent this may put people off. On the other hand, it is so packed with great nuggets of information that they may be inspired to keep reading. Of course, there is the question of whether this book will actually improve your .NET development skills, but in riposte, you can honestly say that no volume details the CLR and its potential so well, and that this alone is worth the book's cover price.
You can purchase Essential .NET, Volume One from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
This one is a great addition to the book shelf, you all know how to do certain things with .NET languages but this book clarifies nicely why you are actually doing it. Also, it introduces nice new .NET library/bytecode concepts which hardcore Visual basic 6/VC++ 6 users might not have come across before.
There is no god
Get it? C-sharp? Because he uses knives...and they have to be sharp?
The important thing is that I am happy with me.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
Donald Knuth will be writing THE definitive book on bytecode languages in TAOCP volumes 11-12. I don't see any reason to dick around with some amateur's feeble attempt.
nobody on Slashdot gives a RATS FUCKING ASS about fucking Winbloze shit!
.NET is slowly growing, for good or bad. If you want your family to starve to serve the OSS cause, go ahead. But, I wanna eat, dude. the 90's are gone. It is grovel time.
I don't like many aspects of the Microsoft Way either, but MS projects pay the bills better than OSS projects for some reason for me. If I was well-to-do, I might subsidize my slide over to OSS. But the tech economy is a wreck right now and I take what I can get. The demand for
Table-ized A.I.
Their blogs may be the only clue to the higher level of thinking that they operate at
Well let's not get delusions of grandeur here...
Some of us had no idea CLR was going to replace COM. We all wanted COM to die a horrible death and now you've ruined the surprise. On top of that, you give away the fact that .NET is the first of a series. I suspect we won't get a real ending, but a cliffhanger that guarantees we show up for the sequel.
Following volumes to cover Microsoft service pack updates and bug fixes.
.NET, Volume XXIX - What NOT to do...."
"Essential
Informatus Technologicus
I'm surprised that someone so focused on the evils of proprietary systems would be decrying C#. After all, C# is a ratified standard, while Java was pulled from standardization so Sun could maintain control of the language.
Were it not for the patents conspicuously taken out to prevent interoperable implementations, this would be true and CLR/C# would be a better alternative than Java.
Before everyone starts scoffing at how much Micro$oft sucks, I just want to say that .NET is really the best product that MS has produced in a very long time. And when I say .NET I am referring to both the object library and the .NET server. /. when I say that I would rather be on a UNIX based platform, but like many of you due to my job I am forced to deal with a Windows Server environment if I like it or not, and as much as I have tried to hate it, I have actually been quite impressed with what you can do with Visual Studio and .NET .NET web application you use the same code (meaning VB.NET, C# etc, as opposed to ASP, or VB Script) that you would use when writing a desktop app, and the fist time the page is accessed, the web server compiles all the code into dll's on the fly. Converting my existing ASP apps into .NET has tripled the performance using the same hardware. This method is very very fast. Fast to develop and fast to benchmark. It would take me months to write a C/C++ cgi app to do the same thing that I can pump out in an afternoon with VB.NET. And more intuitive I might add.
I'm with the rest of
When you write a
Go ahead and flame me now.
Sigs are out of style, so I'm not going to use one...oh wait..
Jeez, as a technical community can't slashdotters resist making dumb jokes that have been made millions of times before and actually pay attention to the content of something that could be relevant to many of us? I want to see a first post that's not an easy and bad joke for once.
You can sense that while he [Don Box] knows .NET version 1 is an improvement over COM, it's not as good as it could be and things are still be done in v2 and beyond
This could be an interesting read. The reviewer's comment on Box's impression of .NET confirms the wisdom of my decision not to be an early adopter of .NET, if I take it up at all. Although Box is a MS-centric developer, he discusses the issues involved in app development with candor as well as detail.
Always look on the briight side of life! (whistle, whistle)
You know, the "registries" and "assemblies" are getting so complex that I would rather they be stored and managed in a relational database. The rules and tools for relational databases are better understood and apply to many areas, reducing one's learning curve and let's them use existing tools to analyze data and structures. I can look at the schemas and data dictionaries (schemas with extra info, such as field descriptions), and fairly quickly get a feel for how the different entities work and relate to each other.
A proprietary structure just ends up reinventing a lot of database wheels like concurrency, backups, change logging, etc., and has unfamiliar access protocols, often mirroring the "navigational databases" of the 1960's.
I know, some of you say that I have an "if all you have is a hammer, then everything is a nail" view about RDBMS (relational databases), but when structures become non-trivial, then nothing beats a RDBMS in most cases. If it walks like a database and quacks like a database, then perhaps it is time to use a database.
Table-ized A.I.
Java Vs C#
Java and C# = 239, C# = 736 OR 497 for C# alone, Java = 4596 OR 4357 for Java alone, Java Wins outright 4357 to 497.
In fact Java is more in demand than C++ (3081) or Visual Basic ( 2252 )
J2EE Vs .NET .NET = 23, .NET = 1392 or 1369 for .NET alone,
J2EE = 2120 or 2097 for J2EE alone,
J2EE wins by points 2097 to 1369.
J2EE AND
According to theory, .NET should be picking up the bulk of Visual Basic Developers...
.NET WITH Visual Basic,
Visual Basic AND J2EE AND .NET = 5,
Visual Basic AND .NET = 58 or 53 alone,
Visual Basic AND J2EE = 168 or 163 for J2EE alone,
J2EE wins by points 163 to 53.
J2EE With Visual Basic Vs
In comparison to the number of Visual Basic based jobs, there is very little demand for the shift towards the backward incompatable Visual Basic.NET.
According to theory, C# should be picking up the bulk of Visual Basic Developers...
Java With Visual Basic Vs C# WITH Visual Basic
Visual Basic AND Java AND C# = 65, Visual Basic AND C# = 250 or 185 alone, Visual Basic AND Java = 696 or 534 alone, Java wins by points 534 to 185.
According to theory, C# should be picking up the bulk of the C++ developers...
Java With C++ Vs C# WITH C++
C++ AND Java AND C# = 149, C++ AND C# = 311 or 162 alone, C++ AND Java = 1242 or 1093 alone, Java wins outright 1093 to 162.
You should always write web application using a platform that allows you to use the same infra-structure you use for desktop application. Besides the learning curve problem, it also helps when you wnat to mix them both ("weblize" a destop app, for instance).
That said, ASP and VB.NET are not the answer. Using non-portable languages to write web apps is a very bad idea.
It would take me months to write a C/C++ cgi app
Where are you from, 1994? If you really need unmantainable spagetthi like ASP, you can use PHP (portable across all known platforms), but you have Java (Tomcat) and Python (Zope) that allow you to use very high-level structures with a higher productivity (in my experience) than any Windows-only solution. No one writes C cgis anymore...
The big difference between the ASP.NET paradigm and that of, say, Java Servlet Pages, or XSP, etc. lies in the event-based nature of ASP.NET pages.
.aspx page). The .aspx page is parsed on each request, but the code-behing is pre-compiled.
Each ASP.NET page is an instance of the "Page" class, or one of its sub-classes. The "Page Lifecycle" defines the various phases that apply each time a page is accessed. The "Page" is simply the top-level node in the "control tree", and each control in the tree does the following for all its children (recursively):
1. initialization
2. handle postback data
3. state management
4. handle events
5. pre-render stuff
6. render to HTML (or whatever)
7. clean up
Most of your code will pertain to numbers 4 and 5 above, if done correctly.
It's not immediately intuitive, coming from a Web App developer's perspective, but does provide a good general structure and mechanism.
In addition, each Page is split into its actual class (the so-called "code-behind page"), and its representation as markup (the
ASP.NET provides a robust programming model for web applications, but it also provides a lot of built-in mechanisms for doing common stuff. Authentication, Authorization, Caching, DataBinding, XML, conditional rendering, templating, data access through ADO.NET, internationalization, Debugging and Tracing utilities, and more.
That said, I find the event-based programming model quite difficult to master. If used improperly, you can end up running the same code many times; for instance of you populate a given control (say a dropdown) from a database, and do so in response to many different events. Better to flag things and then fetch just once from the DB prior to rendering.
Thoughts?
PS: At the moment, you can't mix multiple languages (C#, VB.NET) within a single Web App.
You can pick up a description of the VM and write one from scratch if you are so inclined, and the JCP controls how the platform develops - in all ways that matter, Java is a standard.
Have a look at www.jcp.org if you want to see a more developer accessible standards process.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The only Java implementations you can get are all based on code licensed from Sun. With the JCP, Sun stifles innovation and progress. And Sun holds numerous patents on Java technologies, making it unlikely that the platform will ever be truly open. With so much control over Java, it is particularly worrisome to see Sun's market evaporate--Sun is a company on the way down, and the question is: what will they do to/with Java before they hit bottom? An SCO-like scenario involving Sun, IBM, and open source implementations seems entirely plausible.
.NET are attempts by two big competitors to establish new proprietary platforms and to do an end-run around open source systems like Linux. If a large fraction of the software on Linux were done in Java, for example, Sun could basically give their own platform an advantage by tinkering with the Java-on-Linux implementation.
.NET compatible set of libraries (which you shouldn't use and which may be encumbered by patents), it is getting its own, native set of APIs.
Both Java and
The solution? Don't use either. Mono may be a way out because, in addition to a
But if you want to avoid the issue altogether, just don't use either Java or C#--there are plenty of good alternatives around. In fact, most software these days should probably be written in languages like Python, with a few core C/C++ libraries for numerical and other high-performance subroutines.
I'll take umbrage with the kneejerk "Java has been doing this for years" comments. Must every idea be so mind-bendingly unique to be deemed useful? Should we all start buying Ford Model-A cars instead of Durangos (or whatever) because Henry Ford "was doing that 100 years ago!"? Are the CLR-based language features a lot like Java? Yes. Should every derivative product be denounced as coming to the table too late? I think not. Once more, .NET ( the bits for developers anyway) brings some better things to the table as well (as evidenced by Sun getting into the leapfrog game with Java v.Next features - Metadata (Attributes), etc).
very few Slashdot submitters or editors show basic competance
That would be competence.
Linus Torvalds can lick Steve Ballmer's scrotum!
Does he have to sign an SCO-like Non-Disclosure Agreement to do it?
Table-ized A.I.
...that some companies still have 'Windows 5.0' on their sheets as lists of systems with operating experience, I don't see how this is relavent.
Right now 'Java' is the en vogue thing to ask for on a resume. C# hasn't reached that level yet. It's still a buzzword to the HR types.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
This is one of the best .NET books, the first of a series of pretty good books, by those involved deeply with the framework.
.NET framework, and is of special interest if you are interested in the advanced features of the Common Language Runtime like method interception, transparent proxies, application domains and metadata.
This book covers the technicalities in the
Compiler writers, framework developers and those who need to get the most out of the framework will be interested in this title.
I can not recommend this book enough. Don has done a fantastic job. It helped the Mono developers understand the low-level technical features of the framework.
Miguel.
Mono is an implementation of the ECMA 334 and 335 standards which are available for anyone to implement (no patent strings attached, check the Mono FAQ for details).
On top of that Mono implements plenty of class libraries: both the non-standarized class libraries from Microsoft, as well as our own universe of class libraries that take advantage of Unix-specific features.
Here is a link: Mono Map (abridged).
Miguel.
Various publishers are working on books about Mono that will cover exactly what you want.
.NET book applies directly to Mono. In fact, before Don joined Microsoft, he was kind enough to let us preview his book, and that helped us understand various internals of the .NET framework.
But everything you learn in Don's Essential
Miguel.
I'm seeing a lot of blind flaming about .net, so here's my overall response. .net (all lowercase, not ".NET") is Microsoft rearchitecting Windows across the board. You don't use the Win32 API any more; you use the .NET libraries. You don't write applications in raw C++ any more, you use C# or another higher-level language that targets the CLR (Microsoft gave advance information to a number of indepdendent language developers, encouraging them to port their products to .net). Security issues caused by low-level buffer overruns have vanished. You get a nice Visual Basic-like environment for creating GUIs. This is all a great idea.
.NET and C# are much better than the Win32 API and C++, there's a general staidness to it all. It feels like we've moved from 1985 to where we should have been in 1994. C# feels wonderful if you're a C++ programmer who never used Turbo Pascal or Visual Basic (or if you're a Turbo Pascal or Visual Basic programmer annoyed with C++), but it feels overly complex if you've used a dynamic language like Python, Smalltalk, or Lisp. The OOPness of .NET is very heavy and static. And it's all still based on a compile-run cycle, which is hard to go back to once you've gotten away from it.
.NET, and even though Microsoft is showing a lot of initiative and is willing to throw out a lot cruft we've all gotten used to, I don't think it's enough. The result is still complex enough and elaborate enough that it's tough to bank on it as the future.
The downside is that while
Personally, even though I think Microsoft is correcting a lot of past mistakes with
The red parts are components that Microsoft has not submited to ECMA for standarization and hence have no explicit patent grant. Whether there is an enforceable patent there is unknown, but is dubious, as for the most part they are wrappers to existing technology, or implementations of concepts already available.
;-)
The green parts are components that we have developed outside of the Microsoft world (they do not have a Microsoft equivalent). Whether there are patents or not is uncertain as they are also wrappers for existing technologies (Gtk, Mozilla, etc). Microsoft would certainly not have a Mozilla# patent
Miguel.