Programming in the .NET Environment is the software developer's guide to the .NET Framework. The authors describe Microsoft's vision for distributed component-based systems development and then show programmers how to develop software that takes full advantage of the features of the .NET Framework. Readers learn how to author components, libraries, and frameworks that not only exploit the capabilities of the .NET Framework but also integrate seamlessly into that environment.

This book begins with an introduction to the goals and architecture of the .NET Framework. Readers will then gain a thorough understanding of the type, metadata, and execution systems; learn how to build and deploy their components within .NET assemblies; and gain an understanding of the facilities of the Framework Class Libraries.

Topic coverage includes:

• The Common Language Runtime (CLR) and the Framework Class Libraries

• The CLR's Type, Metadata, and Execution Systems

• Creating and deploying .NET Assemblies

• Internationalization and localization facilities

• .NET Languages, including C# and Visual Basic .NET

The book concludes with appendixes written by other specialists in the field: Paul Vick (writing about VB .NET), Eric Gunnerson (on C#), Mark Hammond (on Python for .NET), Jan Dubois (on Perl for .NET), John Gough (on Component Pascal for .NET), Pankaj Surana (on Scheme for .NET), Nigel Perry (on Mondrian), and Juerg Gutknecht (on Active Oberon for .NET).

Written by a team of experienced authors using a practical, authoritative approach, Programming in the .NET Environment is an indispensable guide to developing components that fulfill the promise of Microsoft's .NET Framework.

Books in the Microsoft .NET Development Series are written and reviewed by the principal authorities and pioneering developers of the Microsoft .NET technologies, including the Microsoft .NET development team and DevelopMentor. Books in the Microsoft .NET Development Series focus on the design, architecture, and implementation of the Microsoft .NET initiative to empower developers and students everywhere with the knowledge they need to thrive in the Microsoft .NET revolution.

0201770180B10312002

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 8 Ratings

Excellent book if you're already a .NET expert - 2003-04-06
Reviewer Rating:
A better title for this book would be `An Insider's Guide to Why the .NET Framework Was Designed the Way It Was'. The authors are Microsoft developers who have been working on .NET for most of its existence. Because of their first hand knowledge of the Framework's evolution, they offer a perspective that is uniquely different than all the other .NET books out there. Covered are topics such as the design goals of C# (including an alarming story of how Microsoft considered modifying C++ rather than creating a new language), the internal discussions of the Visual Basic team regarding how that language would evolve, and the advantages/disadvantages of garbage collection versus deterministic finalization, and why garbage collection finally won out. There are even little known nuggets, such as why every .NET Framework executable contains the string "BSJB" (they are the initials of four of the original developers).

This book is filled with numerous examples of how .NET solves problems differently than other architectures such as CORBA, COM, and Java. It freely admits advantages others might have in certain areas but the authors clearly evangelize .NET as the best overall solution. It follows a consistent pattern when discussing concepts such as type systems, metadata, versioning, and security. First, it describes the core problem or challenge. Second, implementations by other languages/architectures are briefly discussed. Finally, a detailed explanation is given of how .NET offers the best solution, complete with clear examples.

Several topics are discussed that are skipped in other .NET books. Whether this is a good thing depends on your skill level and your interest in these topics. Experienced developers who are already proficient in .NET will appreciate the excellent discussion of the boxing of value types into reference types, how events and properties are implemented behind the scenes, and the line-by-line analysis of the Intermediate Language (IL) of a simple application.

While most examples are presented in C#, this book does not help one become proficient in it. The examples are given only to illustrate how the .NET Framework works, not any particular language.

What are clearly missing are chapters on creating web applications, web services, windows forms, and windows services. In other words, this book by itself only provides a small piece of the knowledge a developer must gain when learning .NET.

As a former Visual Basic developer, I am task-oriented. This is in contrast to being theory-oriented, which is how I think of C++ developers who spend an extra ten hours tweaking pointers (and tracking down memory leaks) to gain a ten percent speed increase in a procedure. Though I have converted to C#, I am still more interested in getting the job done quickly than understanding the internal details of the .NET engine.

I bring this up because this book is theory-based, and as such I found it lacking in information I could immediately apply to my programming projects. We are all stretched for time, and I would rather spend mine reading about techniques to solve business problems through real-world examples of forms and services, not learning why C# produces slightly different IL than VB.

That being said, this book has a place among developers who come from a Computer Science background, or who know C++ or Java inside and out, or who already know .NET very well and want to learn the core underpinnings. In this regard it does an excellent job and is well written and concise.

However, I only gave it three stars because I believe most developers could better spend their time with other books that offered more practical and applicable advice. Those books, such as Wrox's `Professional C#' or Sams' `ASP.NET Unleashed', teach just enough of the core underpinnings to keep a developer from shooting himself in the foot, yet focus most of the time on real world examples that are far more useful.

Straight From The Source - 2003-02-19
Reviewer Rating:
Do you want to know how .NET actually WORKS? If you weren't comfortable using C++ until you understood v-tables, then this is the book for you.

The co-authors are exactly the right people for this purpose. Brad Abrams was a .NET development lead; Mark Hammond implemented Python.NET; and Damien Watkins helped Monash University learn about .NET before starting his own .NET consulting company.

When I was one of Microsoft's Technical Evangelists for .NET, I invited Mark and Damien to participate with Brad in the design of the .NET Runtime back in 1999 -- along with the designers of other commerical and academic languages such as Smalltalk, Scheme, Eiffel, Haskell, Oberon, etc. -- to make sure that the .NET Runtime and CLR really could support different languages well. Their feedback made .NET more flexible, powerful, and useable. In this book, they explain not only HOW .NET works, but WHY. After all, these guys helped MAKE those decisions.

Some have said that only compiler writers targeting .NET would be interested in reading this book. I could not disagree more. At each level of abstraction above the silicon, more and more trade-offs must be made by those implementing the abstractions. If you don't understand the feature and performance trade-offs they made, then you're not going to be able to make good trade-offs yourself, when writing code that uses their abstractions. In an ideal world, all abstractions would be pure, involving no trade-offs; but .NET was designed for the real world, in which performance still matters. Do you write code for the real world, too? Then you NEED to read this book.

If you'd rather read the Kama Sutra than "Sex for Dummies," then order this book RIGHT NOW.

Good Reference, but not for the beginner. - 2003-04-16
Reviewer Rating:
Programming in the .NET environment provides insights and examples for using the latest enhancements provided by the .NET framework. The text is mostly language agnostic, though some of the code examples are in C#, but the concepts apply to all .NET enabled languages. I found most of the material dry, but necessary information to know, if you are planning on doing any sort of .NET application.

The book covers some fairly challenging concepts, but discusses them in a clear manner. Certain sections required prior knowledge. For example in one of the sections talked about Visual Studio's nmake.exe utility. I do not have much experience with nmake.exe and the authors assumed a prior understanding, so I had to go and read the Visual Studio documentation to learn about this command before I fully understood the rest of the section. Also, I found chapter 3 to be a bit difficult to understand without an understanding of COM/COBRA.

The book contains a wealth of knowledge, and if you are going to be doing a lot of .NET programming, knowing the material and having this book as a reference will be essential to you. The appendix chapters which discuss language-specifics and .NET proved to be a useful read to get to know the benefits of each language. This knowledge is useful to determine which tool is the right choice for any particular job.

This is one of the few books in the .NET development series from AWL that I have been a bit disappointed in. Certain sections are excellent, while others leave a little to be desired. You can defiantly tell that the chapters are written by different authors as they seem disjointed and some have a higher quality than others. Overall, I would say it is a good reference to have, but not really worth reading beginning to end.

This book is a must have! - 2003-02-13
Reviewer Rating:
For anyone doing serious development on the .NET platform, this book does a great job of explaining the fundamental CLR concepts which any developer needs to understand. I find it is also quite useful as a handy reference to help in explaining concepts to other developers as well. Between this book and Don Box's Essential .NET, you can't go wrong!

Programming in the .NET Environment - 2005-10-26
Reviewer Rating:
This is a book rich with the programming in .NET
Descriptions are very detail and it include a lot of example that make u more clear.

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