The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5) - Introduction to the MS .NET Framework

Introduction to the MS .NET Framework

Can anyone recommend book which Introduce the philosophy behind the .NET Framework.

What are the "best", "hottest" .NET web ressources for .NET ?

Also any links to Open Source .NET projects are welcome

Cheers!

Electro
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Title: NET Framework Essentials, 3rd Edition
Authors: NET Framework Essentials, 3rd Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly and Associates, Inc.
ISBN: NET Framework Essentials, 3rd Edition
Abstract:
Succinct but gets the idea of .net framework across. If you wanted details you can always shell out USD$1.5K+ for the references put out by Microsoft

Li-fan Chen
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

ISBN: 0-596-00505-9

Li-fan Chen
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

I second http://safari.oreilly.com/?x=1&mode=section&sortKey=title&sortOrder=asc&view=&xmlid=0-596-00505-9
but my recommendation is based upon reading the first edition.

Just me (Sir to you)
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Seriously, the best book introducing the framework is '.NET Framework Applied Programming' by Jeffrey Ritcher.

This is not a 'introduction to programming' book, nor a C# or VB.NET book. Just pure Framework internals for programmers moving to .NET.

It talks about the why as much as abut the what.

This was the first book I read about the .NET Framework and probably also the best one.

.NET Developer
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

The correct title is

Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735614229/qid=1074106606//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i0_xgl14/104-4862517-7367949?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

.NET Developer
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

For general open-source .Net projects, check out:

www.codeproject.com
www.gotdotnet.com

For an ongoing project to develop an open-source Framework implementation for Mac, Linux, BSD, etc., check out:

www.go-mono.com

Robert Jacobson
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Second to ".NET Framework Essentials" (O'Reilly). Great book. Another great one David Chappell's "Understanding .NET". Both for good overview with short code snippets to show you tha major points.

Forget Jeffrey Ritcher's "Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming" for an introduction text on .NET. It's a great book I use quite often but, as it's title reads, it's about programming and it goes very deep.

NNL
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

My favourite article that explains the .NET Framework is a more-or-less-lengthy 5 pages article at:

Ars Technica: Microsoft .Net (13 February 2002)
http://www.arstechnica.com/paedia/n/net/net-1.html

It:
- explains what are the main components of .Net (the Common Language Runtime - CLR - and the class libraries)
- explains some concepts (managed code, managed data, common type system and assemblies)
- discusses performance issues (regarding Just-In-Time - JIT - Compilation)
- explains what are the several steps of JIT Compilation in .Net
- explains how assemblies "work" including versioning
- presents some "features" of .Net like metadata, attributes, language neutrality and safety
- tries to answer the question "Is this MS's [latest] attempt to kill Java?"
- briefly discusses COM and .Net (differences and interoperability)
- mentions C# in the sight that it is "just" another ".Net language"
- discusses .Net and standards (both standards that .Net uses like SOAP and UDDI; and the ECMA standardization of a subset of the CLR called CLI - Common Language Infrastructure)
- mentions other implementations besides Microsoft's, namely Mono - http://www.go-mono.com/ - which Robert Jacobson has already mentioned here

There is also a .Net forum, that's also here at Joel on Software, namely at:
http://discuss.fogcreek.com/dotnetquestions/

Ricardo Dias Marques
Thursday, January 15, 2004