.NET Framework Essentials 
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Author Thuan Thai and Noang Q. Lam
Publisher O'Reilly
Length 304 pages
vbRad Rating: 4 fingers up. (4 out of 5)
Reviewed by Kohinoor Basu

Microsoft's .Net is vastly different from its predecessor Visual Studio 6.0. The change is not just in syntax or framework, but in the programming paradigm as well, at least for Visual Basic programmers. Although powerful object oriented solutions have been built for years using VB 4, 5 and 6, the language lacks certain OO features. OO inheritance in Visual Basic is currently limited to defining and implementing interfaces (interface inheritance). The other fundamental OO concept of inheritance (implementation inheritance, which is arguably the most useful) is not present. With the introduction of .NET, Visual Basic developers will find at their disposal more OO features and more power than VB aspired to ever before. Hence the need for many new VB.Net and general .Net books, which publishers of VB technical books are certainly eager to provide (VB6 being somewhat over-written about), and which VB programmers are snapping up at record rates. This review covers one of these early entries into this new niche market.

Editors Note: it seems a little unprecedented that so many titles are quickly becoming available for software that is still in beta. I don't know who tracks such things - but it has to be a record of some sort.

The book introduces Visual Basic developers to the vast world of .NET in baby steps. The authors have done an excellent job of not flooding readers with too much information. The content of the book has purposely been kept very focused. The authors have highlighted key features of .NET like CLR, ADO.NET, and Web Services in a very concise yet effective manner. The examples in the book are very precise and to the point often consisting of just enough code to explain new features. Supporting code has been omitted for the sake of brevity. Chapters on Data and XML, Web Services, and Web Forms, however contain enough code to get an existing Visual Basic developer going with .NET.

Apart from discussing .NET components and framework, the authors from time to time have explained different utilities that have been supplied with the .NET SDK. They are extremely useful, as they are integral part of the new programming paradigm. The best examples I can think of are discussions on ildasm.exe and gac.exe. These utilities will be of vital importance to any developer using .NET. Apart from main discussion, this book also comes with a very handy and useful appendix.

However, the book lacks in some areas. The most significant example of this is the lack of discussion on how to create multi-threaded applications. Since .NET is ideal for writing enterprise applications, one cannot ignore multithreading. Threading becomes an integral part of such application and hence some discussion should have been included in this book. Moreover, since VB developers have historically had little or no capability to introduce true multithreading into their apps, a small introduction here would have been really nice.

If one ignores the small shortcoming mentioned above, the book is extremely well written and will serve as a very good starter for .NET enthusiasts. I highly recommend this book to anyone and especially to Visual Basic developers who are willing to get started with .NET.


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