Distributed .NET Programming in C#

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Distributed .NET Programming in C#

With the bulk of introductory tutorial books on C# and.NET on the shelves already, publishers such as Apress have turned theirproduct catalogs toward more specific and often more challenging subjects in aneffort to elevate their readership s understanding of this technology s moresophisticated uses. In the case of Distributed .NET Programming in C#,author Tom Barnaby assumes readers are comfortable with C# already and areeager to learn more advanced features of the .NET Framework.

Once the obligatory introductions of why .NET is good fordistributed programming and how its infrastructure supports these types ofapplications, the book discusses assemblies, versioning, attributes,reflection, garbage collection, and serialization in the .NET world, each at abrisk pace. Chapters 3 through 5 are all about .NET remoting, with plenty ofeasy-to-follow code samples showing this capability in action. Barnabydiscusses XML Web Services in Chapter 6, although not to any exhaustive detail.Numerous books exist on the subject of building Web Services with .NET, and assuch, this book does not spend a lot of time detailing this technology sunderpinnings.

The book s sole appendix, which covers .NET data accessusing ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), is actually a reprint from another Apresstitle, C# and the .NET Platform by Andrew Troelsen, and in fact is oneof the book s largest sections. No efforts were made to remap the referencesmade within this chapter back to the host, giving it a truly tacked-on feelintended to increase the book s page count. I would much rather have preferredthat this page space been dedicated to a case study or, better yet, amonster-sized application example that demonstrated all the ideas imparted bythe book. I also would have appreciated an exploration, with samples, about howto deal with non .NET-enabled platforms such as leveraging Windows clients thathave not installed the .NET Framework, or even examples of distributedcomputing applications where .NET servers and services mingle with otherdistributed technology platforms and operating systems.

The book is pricey considering its size, with about 200pages of information covered in (and in the case of the appendix, blatantlyreprinted from) most introductory C# texts. Also, considering it has noaccompanying CD-ROM that could help justify the product s added expense,readers must download the code on their own time and dime(s). And because theappendix is actually from a different book, readers must download two separatefiles.

Distributed .NET Programming in C# is categorizedfor intermediate and advanced users, but this might only be due to the factthat the book presumes readers possess adequate C# programming skills alreadyand can breeze past the refresher chapters in the first part of the book.Unfortunately, too much of the contents are squandered on information presentedpreviously ad nauseam in other C# texts. Besides the outstanding chapters on.NET remoting and message queuing, this book simply offers too few new insightsto justify its steep cover price.

Mike Riley

Distributed .NETProgramming in C#

by Tom Barnaby, Apress, http://www.apress.com

Rating:

ISBN: 1590590392

Cover Price: US$49.95

(528 pages)