Understanding .NET: A Tutorial and Analysis by David Chappell

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
Microsoft has already invested billions of dollars in .NET: Thousands of programmers have been working on it, many for several years. It's their biggest "bet-the-company" gambit since Windows. But what is .NET? Is it the world's best platform for building advanced web services, or just more marketing hype? Is it a common foundation for tomorrow's best programming languages? Or just the latest temptation to lock yourself into the Microsoft monopoly? Is it thoroughly standards-based, or Microsoft's bid to make the Internet its proprietary fiefdom, or both?

Which parts of .NET are natural transitions from existing Windows technologies? Which parts are more difficult than they look? Which parts are warmed-over legacy technologies, with the .NET brand glued on at the last minute? Which parts require the most painful transitions, and are they worth it? Which parts aren't ready for prime time?

If you're asking questions like these, you owe it to yourself to read Understanding .NET: A Tutorial and Analysis. Author and consultant David Chappell has been advising organizations on Microsoft enterprise technologies for years; he's keynoted conferences throughout the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Now, he's distilled his independent insights into .NET into an outstanding primer for every developer and decision maker.

This is not a book about coding: It's a high-level look at what .NET means to you as a developer or IT manager. The core narrative is as close to objective as anything we've seen, and it's spiced with sidebars where Chappell offers his own useful (and occasionally provocative) opinions.

In a discussion about how ASP.NET is far harder than its predecessor, Chappell observes: "Classes, events, inheritance, and a host of other more advanced concepts will descend on unsuspecting ASP developers like fog on a San Francisco evening." Might you run Java under .NET, and get the best of "both" worlds? Well, yeah, there's a J#.NET, but "people who believe that Microsoft is truly interested in building a first-class environment for building new Java applications might also wish to examine their beliefs about Santa Claus."

Don't get the impression that this is a flippant book. Chappell has thought longer and harder about .NET than most other commentators, and his points have been sharpened through presentation to thousands of developers and decision makers.

For instance, in just 30 pages, he nails down the benefits of web services with exceptional clarity, presents a simple model for understanding them, illuminates each key standard, and shows how they all fit together in real application scenarios. In his chapter on .NET's Common Language Runtime, Chappell takes on the key questions: Will MSIL code be fast enough? (Answer: For most applications, probably yes.) Do assemblies really end "DLL hell"? (Answer: If you're reasonably careful.)

Chappell spends a good deal of time on the .NET Framework Class Library, drilling down in somewhat greater technical detail, to help developers understand exactly what they're in for. There's a lot of new stuff in the Framework Class Library, most of it extremely valuable -- for example, the extensive XML support to be found in the System.Xml namespace. Chappell also points out a few significant flaws; for example, the implementation of COM+ services as a wrapper around Microsoft's old code.

While some elements of .NET (like the so-called .NET Enterprise Servers) offer little new technology, others -- notably ADO.NET -- are far newer than their "evolutionary" names would apply. Chappell offers exceptional insight into ADO.NET (including a great explanation of why Microsoft keeps changing data access technologies, and a concise look at ADO.NET compatibility with non-Microsoft databases).

He concludes with a preview of one of the newest elements of .NET, Microsoft's My Services tools for storing and accessing personal information on the Web. If My Services (a.k.a. Hailstorm) works out as Microsoft intends, it could lead to an entirely new class of automated web applications. But, umm, there is that ol' devil security...

In barely 300 pages, Chappell successfully reviews and evaluates pretty much all of .NET, mining insights that will be invaluable to every Microsoft IT shop. It's not just a tour, it's a tour de force. (Bill Camarda)

Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer with nearly 20 years' experience in helping technology companies deploy and market advanced software, computing, and networking products and services. He served for nearly ten years as vice president of a New Jersey–based marketing company, where he supervised a wide range of graphics and web design projects. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.

From the Publisher

Microsoft's .NET is a collection of new technologies that are revolutionizing Windows-based software development. A major theme of .NET is the idea of Web services, allowing software to communicate directly with other software using Internet technologies. The .NET Framework and Visual Studio.NET, two more core aspects of this initiative, provide a multi-language environment in which developers can create Web services and other kinds of applications. .NET My Services, yet another aspect of .NET, offers a new kind of platform for creating a new class of applications. Taken as a whole, the .NET technologies will change the way nearly every Windows application is built.

Understanding .NET: A Tutorial and Analysis offers developers and technical managers a concise guide to the new landscape of Windows development. Margin notes, detailed diagrams, and lucid writing make this book easy to navigate and to read, while analysis sections explore controversial issues and address common concerns. The book's independent perspective and straightforward descriptions make clear both how the .NET technologies work and how they can be used.

Key topics include:

The key to using a new technology is understanding it. Understanding .NET will help you make the right decisions and make the most of this reframework.

Booknews

The .NET platform represents the biggest single set of new technologies that Microsoft has ever presented to its technical customers. This guide for students, developers and technical managers provides a broad overview of the major .NET technologies and describes how they work together. Coverage includes, for example, the Common Language Runtime (CLR), accessing Web services using the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), and the .NET Framework class library. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Forewords & Introductions

Table of Contents

Forewords & Introductions

.NET is the biggest single set of new technologies that Microsoft (or possibly any vendor) has ever presented to its technical customers. The tremendous changes wrought by .NET improve nearly every aspect of a developer's life, but they also present a massive amount of new technology to understand. The goal of this book is to help you make the move to this big new world.

Who This Book Is For

.NET is huge. There will be plenty of books that provide detailed examinations of each facet of this enormous technology crystal, plenty of books with hardcore, hands-on information. This isn't one of those books. I believe strongly that understanding .NET as a whole is essential before delving more deeply into any single part of the technology. Accordingly, my goal here is to provide a broad overview of the major .NET technologies. And because one of the greatest strengths of this family of software and services is the way one part exploits another, this book also tries to show how those technologies fit together.

If you're looking for a big-picture introduction and a perspective on the whole of .NET, this book is for you. Whether you're a developer just getting started with .NET, a technical managerwho needs to make decisions about these technologies, or a student seeing some of these ideas for the first time, this book should be a useful guide. There is enough detail here to satisfy many people completely, while others will use this book as a stepping-stone to more specific knowledge. In any case, I hope the book's organization and content make it easier for you to come to grips with this mass of technology.

Fact and Opinion

Grasping a new technology requires learning the fundamentals. What are its main parts? How do they work? How do they fit together? But really understanding a technology requires more than this. You need to know not just how things work but also why they're important, how they compare with what's gone before, and what might happen next.

This book provides all of these things. In the text itself, I've tried hard to remain strictly tutorial, focusing solely on describing what .NET is. In the analysis boxes, I give some broader perspective on various aspects of this technology. In every case, the analysis expresses my view of why things are the way they are or what the future is likely to hold. By separating the objective and the subjective, I hope to make it easier for you to distinguish between the two. By providing opinion as well as fact, I hope to make this book both more interesting and more enlightening.

Acknowledgments

If you've ever written a book, you know how much help you get from other people. If you haven't, well, trust me: Without these people's assistance, this book would be substantially less than it is. I'd like to express my heartfelt thanks to Bob Beauchemin, Keith Brown, Cori Day, Ted Demopoulos, Bill Estrem, Jeannine Gailey, Kit George, Greg Hack, Rob Howard, Maxim Loukianov, Juval Lvwy, Peter McKiernan, Yahya H. Mirza, John D. Mitchell, Christophe Nassare, Eric Newcomer, David Sceppa, Aaron Skonnard, and Mike Woodring for reading, commenting on, and often correcting various parts of this book. I'd like to single out Richard Monson-Haefel, a strong technologist and fine writer, who read and commented intelligently on every chapter.

The attendees in the many .NET seminars I've presented have also contributed mightily to making this book better. By letting me practice my explanations, they helped me figure out which paths to understanding .NET worked. By asking insightful questions, they provided the inspiration for many of the analysis boxes scattered throughout this book.

Many people at Addison-Wesley also deserve my profound thanks. Without Kristin Weinberger, neither the Independent Technology Guide series nor this book would exist. Without Stephane Thomas, I would never have finished this project. Without Cindy Kogut, my text would have been significantly less clear. And without Katie Noyes, the beautiful cover design wouldn't have been created.

I'd also like to thank my good friends Jim and Judy Moffitt for a hand-delivered care package of chocolate chip cookies that arrived just when I needed it most. And finally, I owe all manner of things to Diana Catignani, without whom my life would be so very much poorer.

David Chappell
December 2001