This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

“ Framework Design Guidelines is one of those rare books that can be read at different reading levels and can be useful to different kinds of developers. Regardless of whether you want to design an effective object model, improve your understanding of the .NET Framework, borrow from the experience of software gurus, stay clear of the most common programming mistakes, or just get an idea of the huge effort that led to the .NET initiative, this book is a must-read.”

–Francesco Balena, The VB Migration Partner Team (www.vbmigration.com), Code Architect, Author, and Microsoft Regional Director, Italy

“ Frameworks are valuable but notoriously difficult to construct: your every decision must be geared toward making them easy to be used correctly and difficult to be used incorrectly. This book takes you through a progression of recommendations that will eliminate many of those downstream ‘I wish I’d known that earlier’ moments. I wish I’d read it earlier.”

–Paul Besly, Principal Technologist, QA

“ Not since Brooks’ The Mythical Man Month has the major software maker of its time produced a book so full of relevant advice for the modern software developer. This book has a permanent place on my bookshelf and I consult it frequently.”

–George Byrkit, Senior Software Engineer, Genomic Solutions

“ Updated for the new language features of the .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5, this book continues to be the definitive resource for .NET developers and architects who are designing class library frameworks. Some of the existing guidelines have been expanded with new annotations and more detail, and new guidance covering such features as extension methods and nullable types has also been included. The guidance will help any developer write clearer and more understandable code, while the annotations provide invaluable insight into some of the design decisions that made the .NET Framework what it is today.”

–Scott Dorman, Microsoft MVP and President, Tampa Bay International Association of Software Architects

“ Filled with information useful to developers and architects of all levels, this book provides practical guidelines and expert background information to get behind the rules. Framework Design Guidelines takes the already published guidelines to a higher level, and it is needed to write applications that integrate well in the .NET area.”

–Cristof Falk, Software Engineer

“ This book is an absolute must read for all .NET developers. It gives clear ‘do’ and ‘don’t’ guidance on how to design class libraries for .NET. It also offers insight into the design and creation of .NET that really helps developers understand the reasons why things are the way they are. This information will aid developers designing their own class libraries and will also allow them to take advantage of the .NET class library more effectively.”

–Jeffrey Richter, Author/Trainer/Consultant, Wintellect

“ The second edition of Framework Design Guidelines gives you new, important insight into designing your own class libraries: Abrams and Cwalina frankly discuss the challenges of adding new features to shipping versions of their products with minimal impact on existing code. You’ll find great examples of how to create version N+1 of your software by learning how the .NET class library team

created versions 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 of the .NET library. They were able to add generics, WCF, WPF, WF, and LINQ with minimal impact on the existing APIs, even providing capabilities for customers wanting to use only some of the new features, while still maintaining compatibility with the original library.”

–Bill Wagner, Founder and Consultant, SRT Solutions, author of Effective C# and More Effective C#

“ This book is a must read for all architects and software developers thinking about frameworks. The book offers insight into some driving factors behind the design of the .NET Framework. It should be considered mandatory reading for anybody tasked with creating application frameworks.”

–Peter Winkler, Sr. Software Engineer, Balance Technology Inc.

“An instant classic.”

–From the Foreword by Miguel de Icaza

Framework Design Guidelines, Second Edition, teaches developers the best practices for designing reusable libraries for the Microsoft .NET Framework. Expanded and updated for .NET 3.5, this new edition focuses on the design issues that directly affect the programmability of a class library, specifically its publicly accessible APIs.

This book can improve the work of any .NET developer producing code that other developers will use. It includes copious annotations to the guidelines by thirty-five prominent architects and practitioners of the .NET Framework, providing a lively discussion of the reasons for the guidelines as well as examples of when to break those guidelines.

Microsoft architects Krzysztof Cwalina and Brad Abrams teach framework design from the top down. From their significant combined experience and deep insight, you will learn

• The general philosophy and fundamental principles of framework design

• Naming guidelines for the various parts of a framework

• Guidelines for the design and extending of types and members of types

• Issues affecting–and guidelines for ensuring–extensibility

• How (and how not) to design exceptions

• Guidelines for–and examples of–common framework design patterns

Guidelines in this book are presented in four major forms: Do, Consider, Avoid, and Do not. These directives help focus attention on practices that should always be used, those that should generally be used, those that should rarely be used, and those that should never be used. Every guideline includes a discussion of its applicability, and most include a code example to help illuminate the dialogue.

Framework Design Guidelines, Second Edition, is the only definitive source of best practices for managed code API development, direct from the architects themselves.

A companion DVD includes the Designing .NET Class Libraries video series, instructional presentations by the authors on design guidelines for developing classes and components that extend the .NET Framework. A sample API specification and other useful resources and tools are also included.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 8 Ratings

A Must not Only For .NET Developers... - 2009-04-02
Reviewer Rating:
Also if you're thinking on developing a framework on any Object Oriented language, this is your book, it covers all the guidelines that makes a framework usable and powerful.

Great read for anyone who designs APIs for external users - 2009-02-05
Reviewer Rating:
I build a product for users that has a large and complicated API. Over the years the API has grown sort of as the users needed it, and as the developers working on it thought of things. As a result you end up with one designers version of a variable called IsSet and another in another class called Active. The little things in an API (like consistent naming) make a big difference to users. So I was interested when I saw this book was from the Dot Net team.

The book is a series of guidelines, and then callouts from various contributors to the framework of why they like or dislike the rule. And in some cases very frank revelations about where they broke the rule and have now come to regret it. I like that format as most of the authors seemed to be very willing to discuss the frameworks mess ups and not just point to the parts they got right. It makes it seem much more human and approachable to me now.

There is not a lot of examples in the book though, it is mostly about building a style and set of guidelines for your application framework. I think this would make a great read for entry level programmers to help them understand the why you don't allow them to change the way things are exposed publicly, or to programmers who are looking to start designing APIs and are just looking for guidance. It is not a concrete how to build an API for doing "sometask". It is all about the theory behind API design and why you should employ the rules.

I have experienced many of the pains they explain in the book first hand (especially about Interfaces). Wish I would have read it before I released the first version of our API. I am implementing some changes based upon what I have read here, so it is definately a worthy book for those looking to take their design skills a little further.

must read - 2009-03-09
Reviewer Rating:
Good to see the way how they created the framework, what makes them to apply these rules and patterns. This book expanded my .net world and I was pondering over the design many times.

Great book for writing developer friendly API's - 2009-08-23
Reviewer Rating:
Although I haven't designed any frameworks or components yet which are meant to be re-used I found this book very informative. I believe this book is relevant for any (.Net) developer because it explains some very useful design practices. It gives great insight how frameworks should be designed and the book contains examples how this is achieved (or not!) in the .Net framework.

The DVD is available for free - 2009-05-21
Reviewer Rating:
I haven't purchased this book yet, but the DVD that it comes with has been made available for free by the publisher through the Internet.

I can't provide the link here (because of Amazon review guidelines) but if you go to Google and type in "framework design guidelines extra content", you won't have problems finding the download link.

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