Customer Rating: 
Summary: A Good Introduction To .NET Which Needs An Update
Comment: This book is a good introduction to various parts of the Microsoft .NET Framework the Microsoft Visual Studio. It covers many of the areas that a programmer using .NET will need to be aware of .ASP pages, Windows Forms, using XML, and accessing databases from the programs among others.
While working through the book, I attended a developer event hosted by Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN). The material that I had already worked with helped me with understanding the new technologies that were demonstrated. Since this book covers a good spectrum of the .NET environment, there were no areas of the demonstration that went over my head.
As far as being in need of an update, not all of the examples worked under my VS2005 trial version that I loaded in order to use it with this book. The Simplest Threading Example from Chapter 9 no longer works under VS2005 due to the changes in thread security. The author (David Platt) notes in the text that this may someday occur and it has. There needs to be a new edition of this book so that changes since the previous version of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework can be addresed so that all of the examples work and can be used as reference.
Overall this is a very good book which I would highly recommend. I am coming at this as a Visual C++ 6.0 programmer who is familiar with some of the other technologies in Visual Studio and needed to make the step into the latest version of the developer environment. This book succeeded for me and I think would be a good starting point for others coming from other development environments and languages.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: An introduction to .NET programming
Comment: Several years ago, I took David Platt's class on .NET programming at Harvard Extension School, and there, not surprisingly, *Introducing Microsoft .NET* was one of the main texts for the course. Some of the reviews that I have seen on this site seem to be based on confusions as to what this book is about and who its intended audience is. This book is meant to provide an overview of .NET technology, including the fundamentals of the .NET Framework, the basics of WinForms development, ASP.NET, and XML web services. It's not intended to provide a very detailed account of every feature of the .NET Framework (which could hardly be encompassed in a single book anyway). On the other hand, some reviewers on this site seem to think that this book was intended as just a technical manager's survey of .NET. Unless the technical maangers, referred to, are experienced developers, then that's not correct either. This book is clearly intended for experienced developers (providing plenty of code samples to help them master the subject) who are not terribly familiar with .NET programming.
I also noticed a few reviewers here complaining that this book does not go sufficiently in depth to please them, but please notice that this book in its very title describes itself as an introductory work. It doesn't pretend to be anything else. Indeed, when I took Platt's course, we were told up front that we would require other texts to supplement it, such as Jeff Prosise's *Programming Microsoft .NET* or Jeff Richter's *Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming*. In fact, as I proceeded through Dave Platt's course I gradually acquired a small library on .NET, accumlating texts on C#, ASP.NET, and ADO.NET. Anybody who thinks that they can learn a complex technology like .NET from a single book probably shouldn't be in the business in the first place.
The book itself is lucidly written, with sample code provided to enable the reader to better understand concepts by seeing how they can be implemented in code. The author makes strenuous efforts to provide the reader with the simplest possible examples that he can think of for each major concept. Pedagogically, that is very helpful to the reader.
Please note that this edition is meant to be read by people who are working with .NET Framework 1.1. It does not cover version 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005. Version 2.0 is discussed in Dave Platt's new book, *The Microsoft Platform Ahead*, which I have yet to read. I wouldn't pretend to know whether he intends to come out with a fourth edition of *Introducing Microsoft .NET* that would deal with .NET Framework 2.0.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very basic
Comment: Not very detalied. Very basic coverage - seems to be only for beginners.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Typical MS. More gloss than substance.
Comment: I purchased this book at a Microsoft "technical" training day. In typical MS fashion, and just like the day itself, the book tends to gloss over details and provide little real information.
If you know nothing about .NET then this book might be ok for you. But you can find loads of free information on the internet, either from the MS site itself, or from one of the excellent developer sites such as [...].
If you are looking for in-depth details then this is not the book for you.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Basically disappointed
Comment: I have significant experience in the embedded world (programming in C and assembler) and now I need to learn the .NET architecture. Hence my interest in Platt's book.
I suppose different people learn and convey information in different ways, and some will find Platt's approach helpful. I did not. Through most of the book I found myself scratching my head trying to figure out what he was getting at, and then disappointed at the end of the chapter that he hadn't really told me much useful information. I found myself reminded of sitting in University listening to brilliant Professors who are enamored with the funky little quirks and details of some new concept, but are unable (or unwilling) to convey the basics of how it actually works.
Be warned that this book does not deal with .NET v2.0, and most of the code examples on his website will not convert to the new release. That can be very frustrating. If you are running the VS2005 beta, you may want to get a different book or hold off until the next version of this one.
On a minor note, I found myself rolling my eyes at the author's constant attempts at humor by referring to other groups of techies as "geeks". I don't think he was trying to be insulting as much as funny, but still--it comes across as a little lame. Once or twice is humorous. Dozens gets simply annoying.
|
|
