No comments about .NET 3.5 Wrox Box: Professional ASP.NET 3.5, Professional C# 2008, Professional LINQ, .NET Domain-Driven Design with C#.

5 comments about Essential ASP.NET With Examples in C# (Microsoft .NET Development Series).

1. I just finished reading this book, I'd say it's the best ASP.NET book! I highly recommend it!



2. Essential ASP.NET is 100% to-the-point containing very useful information with no fluff included. I particularly enjoyed the HTTP pipeline chapter. The entire book contains info that every ASP.NET developer should know.



3. Clearly this is the best ASP.NET book I have ever read.



4. This is a good book, easy to understand and covers a lot of material.



5. I enjoyed this book. It is definitely not for beginners - the high-level treatment suited my style very well. His initial exposition is especially clear and precise. Mr. Onion did not go into too great detail about aspects that I could look up on my own, choosing to focus more on theoretical details/implementation recommendations which are hard to figure out if you are a beginning ASP.NET programmer such as myself.
   
   The snag: He refers to original ASP programming all the time. Why? This is clearly horrible style. I don't know ASP, so I have to skip over the sections which he begins with "Traditional ASP only supported blah blah blah." Then, I become confused because he said something pertinent to the rest of his explanation, so I have to go back, think about Traditional ASP (which is a clear waste of time), figure out his point, and go on.
   
   A great book if you are already an experienced programmer with knowledge of .NET, web programming, etc.

5 comments about Practical .NET for Financial Markets (Expert's Voice in .Net).

1. This text is excellent in what it sets out to do and five other reviewers have said so with 5 star ratings. I agree very much with the reviews of Ted Hrudz and Gulli Ellee, in particular - they are well said and spot on. I think I must make a few comments of my own, however. I have managed financial software projects in the last seven years and have experience in developing and implementing capital and money market securities software, and prior experience in implementing equity software, so I have some background and interest in this area.
   
   First the positives: This books succeeds enormously at providing a very good introduction to equity markets and front and back office software development from a .NET development lead, architect or developer perspective. In less than 500 pages the authors manage to provide a very good and reasonably comprehensive/broad tutorial in several aspects of financials as well as .NET and the book makes reasonably easy reading for such technical subjects. Most of the relevant and interesting topics are covered or touched on. The reviewers I mention above itemize most of the .NET and financials topics covered so I will spare you the repetition.
   
   The authors are obviously very knowledgeable in both the securities domain and the .NET architecture and development technologies and issues and convey their knowledge expertly. This book makes an excellent introduction (but ironically advanced/intermediate in several respects) to the domain concepts and requisite architectural/developmental .NET features. Having said that let me add that you will need more than this book if you seriously plan to undertake financial software development with .NET. You may need to supplement your knowledge in both areas with some of these books, depending what you already know or have been involved in:
   
   Securities/Electronic Payments Domain: 1. Securities Operations: A Guide to Trade and Position Management by Michael Simmons; 2. Corporate Actions by Michael Simmons; 3. After the trade is made by David M. Weiss, Revised 2006 Edition; 4. How the US Securities Market Works by Hal McIntyre (2nd Edition); 5. Gobal Securities Operations by Jeremiah O'Connor; 6. Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners by Larry Harris; 7. An Introduction to Financial Technology by Roy S. Freedman. 8. You may also need to understand Secure Electronic Payment Systems (see texts by Weidong Kou, Mostafa Hashem Sherif)
   
   Technology (.NET Framework, Visual Studio & SQL mainly) : Books by some of the best authors such as 1. Juval Lowy and Alex Ferrara (.NET 3.5, SOA/WCF, Web Services, Remoting, Messaging, Application Logging, Threading, Component-based/Distributed Architectures, Application Security Design, etc.); 2. Chris Sells (Windows Forms in VS 2005); 3. David Sceppa, Brian Noyes, Fabrice Marguerie or David Ratz(ADO.NET 2.0/3.5/Data Binding or LINQ); 4. Stephen Walther, Alessandro Gallo, Cristian Darie, Marco Bellinaso (ASP.NET 2.0/3.5 and AJAX); 4. Nick Rozanski (Software Systems Architecture); 6. Itzik Ben Gan (MS SQL 2005-8); 7. Secure Coding against hacker attacks using books by Gary McGraw/Billy Hoffman/Michael Howard such as 'The 19 Deadly Sins Of Software Security'; to explore such topics in greater detail.
   
   I think the author could have added the equivalent VB.NET code for VB developers and architects. That is the main beef I have (and the book is a bit too expensive, buy it online for a rebate. It should have been paper back to reduce the price for readers) but I still thinks it deserves a 5-star ranking . Bravo to Samir Jayaswal and Yogesh Shetty, the authors!



2. The authors' experience building a .NET application for a trading house shows. As a result I learned a little about the domain & saw several well written "how to" .NET examples based on it.
   
   Two negatives might be worth considering before spending a fair amount of money. First, not much (anything?) about building high performance applications. Lots of talk about needing performance in the securities market, little in the way of delivery. Second, the book is based on .NET 1.X "best practices". The chapter on 2.0 reads like a last minute techno-tour.



3. 'Practical .NET for Financial Markets' by Samir Jayaswal is a very specialized book for all financial developers. Laid out over 9 chapters with 500+ pages of detail this is a wonderfully written reference for this niche market.
   
   If you are a .NET developer in the financial industry you owe it to yourself to pick up this great resource!
   
   ***** RECOMMENDED



4. For me, just beginning in this field, this book is a gem.
   It has great explanations of the lingo/structure of the financial markets as well as useful code examples.



5. I have purchased several markets development books and this one beats them all. It has a fantastic overview of the markets, the language is awesome & the detailed instructions on how you can build your system ground up is fabulous. I'd recommend it to everyone from Beginner to a Pro - "A must buy !!"

No comments about Fundamental Financial Accounting Concepts with Harley-Davidson Annual Report.

5 comments about Programming .NET Web Services.

1. "Programming .NET Web Services" is an easy-to-understand text, which simplified all the difficult aspects of XML Web Services (as it concerned Microsoft .NET platform).
   At 500 pages, this book is not that voluminous, yet, it detailed most of the essential issues needed in order to utilize all the .NET options which one is likely to encounter on both Microsoft and non-Microsoft clients.
   I really find this book useful, despite the fact that some of its elaborations are not as extensive as I would like them to be. This textbook is better used as a daily text, or as the case may be, a quick reference resource.



2. Web Services are a catchphrase that many Microsoft-centric developers are falling in love with and they don't know why. Hey, the affair isn't limited to Microsoft based development firms. Web Services are hot topics right now. They provide the best way yet to utilize the Internet for remote work.

   For the uninitiated (and aren't we all at one time or another), web services are programs that rely on SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) to expose their interfaces across the Internet. This means you can write a program and, if you make it a web service, you will expose its public interfaces for anyone to use via the Internet.

   This book takes a normal O'Reilly tack of presenting in-depth information that is appropriate for users who want to know the wherefores behind the decisions. The authors present the Microsoft/Visual Studio methodology where many of the tedious tasks of Web Service development are performed for the user. They also do a solid job of presenting why that work must be done by someone and how to do it if you don't want to use Visual Studio .NET (VS.NET). The book gives good information (about 30 pages) covering Web Service Description Language (WSDL) before it covers the incredible facility VS.NET provides for generating these documents. WSDL docs are necessary for every web service you build if you expect anyone to use your program. The authors explain and lead the reader through the process of writing a web service and consuming a web service. They also expend effort on discussing stateful versus non-stateful web services and how to appropriately choose the best methodology for your application. With the performance gains that can be attained in IIS 6 via caching, the assertion the authors make about considering caching during design phase rather than after development is in testing or production struck a chord. The book covers IIS 6's caching choices as well as explaining the benefits and drawbacks of both. I didn't finish the debugging and security sections but plan to get back into the book and finish them as they look valuable.

   In conclusion, if you want to mine a book for a robust understanding of web services and the constituent pieces of that technology (with all your examples in C#) then this book is for you. If you're looking to get a 5 minute read and start throwing code (and probably exceptions), pick up a less thorough book. You'll actually read this one instead of just looking for examples to copy. The information this book imparts should be standard knowledge for anyone that expects to write production quality web services.




3. This text addresses just about every challenge a web-services developer may face. Whether it involves calling a set of services asynchronously (and somehow keeping the client(s) updated of its progress) - or whether it is monitoring, profiling and logging your web-services - this text contains well explained examples of doing a lot of useful stuff.
   It has saved me a lot of time - and I found it well worth the price.



4. I like this book. It's very useful for a web developer.



5. I am reading this book after looking at some other WebService books, and this one is climbing the charts.
   All the chapters are very thorough and I am quite surprised that not many people have discovered this gem.
   Grab a copy and read it, and you will become a confident and knowledgeable web services developer.

5 comments about Essential C# 2.0 (Microsoft .NET Development Series).

1. Hi Everyone;
   
   I've read many C# books and I love this book. Mark's approach and ease of communicating a point, is great. There are many people who are very knowledgable, but have no skill of teaching a subject. As if they have closed their ears and kept talking.
   I actually look forward to reading the next page/chapter, rather than see if I'm done.
   
   Highly recommended!
   ..Ben



2. Overall this is a very good book for both beginners and advanced C# programmers. I would like to rate it 5-stars, however, I found the examples with some errors. The editing team should put more effort on reviewing the examples. Eventhough, I still recommend this book.



3. Even if I rated 5 out of 5, the book contains a lot of *very serious mistakes* in the code samples (I have found out more than 10). I'd like to think they are typo mistakes, and the code does not contain what the author intended to write. A very bad rate for the reviewers, who either do not know C#, or they did not review the code samples at all.



4. Good balance between a reference book and one to learn from. I agree with most of the other reviews. The organization is great and progressive.



5. This book is very suitable for readers who already have some programming experience on other languages. It positions right there between beginner level and advanced topics. It also makes perfect balance between tutorial and reference book. It is one of the best C# books that I have read so far.

No comments about More Effective C#: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C# (Effective Software Development Series).

5 comments about Programming in the Key of C#: A Primer for Aspiring Programmers (Step By Step (Microsoft)).

1. Charles Petzold, a veteran of technical book writing, proves himself in this book (again) to be a brilliant teacher. At around 420 pages it's slim in comparison to other Microsoft text books. Part of the reason is that, concentrating solely on the C# language, no screen shots take up space that is more effectively used to explain key concepts of this language & how it fits into OOP. If you're a VB programmer, (as I was) looking to get into C#, this is a great starting point. It does begin at the beginning, (Variable types etc) but don't let this discourage you as there are some subtle differences that you need to learn about which could save confusion in the future, for example, that there is much less in the way of implicit conversion of certain types & this must be taken care of in code. However, this section is a brisk read, & Petzold's clear explanations are enlightening. He really makes it easy to understand how to use this language with some good examples throughout the book. There is nothing about the IDE or controls & just enough on the Framework, but what he does introduce, he explains in depth. This approach keeps his focus on the language which is what this book, after all, is all about.
   
   You will need more once you've read this, but it's an excellent starting point, won't take you months to work through & most importantly, you will `understand' it at the end unlike other books which confuse the explanations with assumptions that you already know some C++.
   
   If I have any problems with this book, it is only that he didn't cover Indexers & Delegate creation as these are not particularly difficult concepts & are important & I'm sure his explanations would have been excellent, but you'll will have to read further to learn about those. Developers coming from a C++ background may want to read something else which encompasses the framework, but for a VB'er, it's a perfect starting point & an excellent reference.



2. Programming in the key of C# aims to introduce the programming language, C#, at a basic level. It covers fundamentals of modern objective programming features such as namespaces, classes and instances. It also reassures readers of what basic data types are supported in C# which follows the footsteps of .NET Framework.
   
   The book is more of a primer than specific (i.e., a book could be based on data structures or producing games). If you are looking to buy a book, and you are an elementary programmer you will find this book very very helpful in terms of learning C#. If you are a regular java, c and c++ developer you will also find this book somewhat helpful in terms of understanding some of the core technologies behind .NET Framework and C#'s language features. Otherwise, if you are looking for something that cover much more integral aspects of C# this book perhaps, isn't for you.
   
   In prelude, it states that the author tried his/her best to avoid making assumptions about any prior programming experience - thus the coverage of some elementary level basics of modern objective programming features.



3. Petzold's 'Programming in the Key of C#' is absolutely for beginner programmers and is written with them in mind both in terms of style and content...sort of.
   
   Late to the C# party, I decided to learn the language prior to a couple of new job interviews. I saw this and grabbed it, thinking it would be just what I'd need. Already knowing Java, C/C++, JavaScript and a bit a Visual Basic, I'm a bit disappointed that the subtitle isn't more specifically addressed to beginning programmers. Programming is a very large subject and all developers/programmers are each at his/her own level. We are all 'aspiring', aren't we? A 'primer' can be quite technical, but this one surely isn't and I blame myself for a wrong purchase -- I should have read a few more paragraphs prior to buying this book.
   
   To wit, the book doesn't even begin discussing arrays (the most basic data structure of them all) until chapter 18. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but many beginning language books address arrays far, far earlier. It's difficult to learn much about a language's capabilities or learn much general information about programming without knowing about and having some experience with the array (specifically the ability to store objects and the ability to create dynamic data structures). The book doesn't even breach linked lists except for one quick mention in passing near the very end of the book. For another example, Petzold only gives one cursory example of recursion (the ubiquitous factorial program) and doesn't really go any deeper than that. Anyone who is an 'aspiring' (absolute beginning) programmer really should be given more than this when presented with such basic material.
   
   Nonetheless, the writing is in a good, easy-to-read style and I've enjoyed skimming through it. Petzold presents background information about the language and uses real-life examples and good little toy programs to illustrate the programming concepts he is discussing. It's altogether a good, easy read. Most of the main topics needed for a very general understanding of the language are presented such as virtuality, inheritance/polymorphism, parameter passage, constructors, etc. and all in a logical sequence that builds up the reader's knowledge.
   
   One serious flaw with this text is the lack of questions at the back of the chapters. In learning other langauges, I've found that a series of questions at the close of a text's chapters helps to hit home the concepts that chapter is teaching. Walter Savitch's Absolute C++ is a very good example of an excellent text that gives the reader much more in terms of small programming assignments, quiz questions, and review lists of terms and concepts.
   
   Although I already know much of the material here, I'm giving this book only 3 stars not because its content is so simple; rather, it is too simplistic. Beginners need a thorough grounding. Since this is the audience for this text, I expect one can do better.



4. The book is very easy to follow. The first chapters are really
   for beginners. But I regret that the classes methods are explained with
   trigonomety examples not that easy to follow even if the explanations
   are there. Also it will have been a better idea to explain objects , classes first then later try to explain a class method class. The book is nice but most of the examples use by the author are maths examples and trigonometry, the last think i was expecting is a trigonometry example to explain to me how a method works. Easier method can b e found in : C# 2005 for dummies. Actually the purchase of both books good be a wise idea.



5. A lot of people are interested in C# now thanks to XNA Games Studio Express and a lot of us have never programmed before. I sat at the book store and read the first few chapters of every C# book I could find and this one is by far the best for beginners like me. I'm through chapter 4 now and realize that if you're looking for a starting point with C#, this is it! It's clear, simple and seemingly written for idiots like me. :)

5 comments about TCP/IP Sockets in C#: Practical Guide for Programmers (The Practical Guides).

1. Did you ever just want a book get to the point and tell you what you need to know? This is that book. If your new to winsock, this book will get you rolling quickly.



2. I think this book is very good because es simple, explain clearly and go directly to the matter.
   
   Juan Ramon Divison



3. This book is a good intermediate to somewhat advanced book on TCP and UDP protocols using Sockets in .Net - all examples of-course as the title suggests are in C#. It does show some interesting examples and was able to get me started using Sockets in .Net - however it didn't go as far as I had hoped. But if you're needing something to show you how to start using Sockets it is a very good book.



4. This book gets very high ratings on both amazon.co.uk and amazon.com. I've given it a slightly lower rating than some, although still four stars, and will explain why...
   
   The subtitle on the cover of the book is "Practical Guide for Programmers" which suggests it is going to be good even for experienced developers. It is only when you read the preface (page X) that you find that the book is aimed "primarily at students", and even then is "intended as a supplement, to be used with a traditional textbook", which seems a bit of a contradiction when it then says that "we have tried to make the book reasonably self-contained".
   
   Anyway, what are the good points of this book? Well, it does mention most of the bits that a developer using sockets will want to consider. It has everything from blocking sockets, through non-blocking sockets and the select model, through to overlapped I/O. It also mentions threading, the use of thread pools, broadcast and multicast. All good stuff. Even includes example code for each.
   
   Where the book falls down is that having skimmed over all of those topics it (a) doesn't provide adequate information about how to choose the model (synch vs. asynch, blocking vs. non-blocking, 1 thread vs. fixed number (> 1) of threads vs. thread pool, etc) to use for a particular project, and (b) falls short of being self-contained, doing the blah-blah is beyond the scope of this book thing.
   
   I have seen many projects developed using the wrong model, resulting in poor performance, lack of responsiveness, inability to shutdown cleanly etc. I'm pretty sure that the authors of the book will have seen projects like that too. Books about using sockets really need to advise on this area.
   
   It is understandable that a book of this size and price will say that some things are outside the scope of the book, but not something as basic as socket options (p52 refers the reader to the MSDN). Again, socket options are an area where well-meaning developers or support staff set values that are little better than guesses, and which sometimes cause adverse effects. If there's going to be a second edition of this book, please include advice on such matters.
   
   So, all in all, good for students or people new to sockets, but not quite great. It tells you the basic techniques, but not how to use them to best advantage. Having said that, I prefer this book to C# Network Programming which rambles, uses language that is ambiguous in places, and contains a significant error (if being very generous, it could be very lazy English causing an unintended meaning) on the very page I opened it on.
   
   It's probably best for people who already know sockets really well, but who are switching from one language to another (e.g. C++ or Java to C#). Those people probably know what model and options to use, just need to see how to do it in C# - something the book does do well.



5. I have a technical book collection that rivals most libraries and this has to be one of the best programming books I've ever purchased. I'm very new to Sockets programming but I am familiar with C#. Therefore, all I needed was a way of familiarizing myself with the fundamentals of sockets programming, not a full-on long-winded lecture of everything-C#. The structure of this book is amazing. It starts each section by providing a brief description of the classes and concepts the authors are about to present. It then presents sample code illustrating the topic followed by an analysis of the code at key points by line number. It then follows up with a detailed summary of each class used in the sample along with its methods, constructors, and properties. Each example gets progressivly more complex which keeps the reader from being overwhelmed with the complexity of the subject matter too quickly.
   
   Quick, concise, and very well written, these authors did a fantastic job!

5 comments about Pro ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005.

1. I've just about had it with Apress books such as this one. The text shows the code for the various examples, but often the code is just a snippet, or it's incomplete, or it has errors. And you don't find this out unless you download the book's code from Apress.com. If you're like me and like to work the examples out on your own as you read, the whole process becomes very aggravating. I think I'll switch back to books from O'Reilly. With O'Reilly books, the authors present a complete, working version of the code on the page.



2. This book is choc-full of useful material on ASP.net. A monster
   in his category, it contains way more about asp.net than you probably want to know...can be a good reference for the experienced ASP.net developer who is moving to the 2.0 version, or has already read smaller books and played a bit with the technology.
   What I find aggravating in this title is the bloated and pompous writing style. This being just another clunky web-technology, who are the authors trying to impress? Also, some of the code examples are incorrect or incomplete, clearly due to the fact that this book has been rushed to publication. More material about design would have made this book better and more balanced. Maybe two volumes would have been less intimidating, but definitely more expensive.
   Don't try this at home if you have never programmed ASP, you will be crushed.



3. I have been a professional web developer for the past 8 years working for a boutique web development shop. While we have done a decent bit of classic ASP over the years, prior to 2006 we have not jumped aggressively on the .NET bandwagon. The advent of ASP.NET 2.0 and the growing din of client requests has changed that and we are now focusing on .NET development.
   
   Prior to reading this book, I read through the Wrox Visual C# 2005 book to gain a solid footing in C# and .NET in general. I must say that although this book's title begins with "Pro" I found it to be very accessible to a relative newbie. Familiarity with the aforementioned C#, web development and object-oriented principles in general seemed to be adequate as a primer for the lessons in this book.
   
   The authors' ability to convey their obviously strong knowledge of the subject was outstanding - the language was not aimed too high nor was it unnecessarily full of jargon. I found the coverage of database access, rich data controls, session state and caching to be particularly valuable. Another area of great value to ASP.NET 1.1 developers is up-front coverage in each chapter to let them know what has changed in 2.0 from the 1.1 coding model. The breadth of coverage of this book is impressive - I cannot think of a significant topic that was not covered in some way. The authors seemed to focus at length on the most commonly used features of the language - they definitely covered the areas that I know we will be using.
   
   One quibble that I have with the book were the occasional typos that made it past the tech checkers/editors. For example, the authors would introduce a new class name or method in a code block and then refer to that same class/method later in the chapter or in later example code with a slightly different name. While I have become accustomed to this in many tech books, I didn't expect to see as many code errors as I saw in a book of this quality.
   
   Overall, I rate this book very highly and encourage any web developer that is interested in being productive with ASP.NET 2005 to get this book.



4. Love may be a weird word but if I could take it to bed with me, I would. (JK). This book is one of the best in the market and probably one of the single best ways to actually learn how to code C# with ASP.NET 2.0 the proper way and best ways out there.
   
   We used it for our .com and the entire team felt the say way about this book and another which is Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005: From Novice to Professional.
   
   This book is huge however I feel that one can read it from front to back as a book and really should with this one..it's very beneficial. Reason is, because this book explains stuff so clear, and so realistic to a work environment, that you can learn so much and how to code even better using 2.0 besides just the concepts.
   
   The authors are very good communicators and they cut to the chase but still gives enough good information to really understand each subject, task, or whatever it may be. Their tips are also invaluable as they apply practical real-world experience to the great techniques and tells you what to do and not to do saving you a lot of pain.
   
   Why is this book so big? Well...the .NET framework? It's huge. And the topics here are broad. They cover a lot and they do it in a nice fashion..it's not scattered or confusing.
   
   This book covers exactly what you need for any type of development environment. It doesn't matter if you're working for a mom & pop shop, a .com, or any other type of industry or IT development shop, this book is what I would consider a Bible and your team should have this one on hand at all times.
   
   I use this book for a quick reference as well as a great read and training tool for myself when I have time at home to study more about the advanced areas of ASP.NET.
   
   It doesn't matter if you consider yourself coding "advanced" or not. Advanced is a relative term in my opinion and this book will help you even in those tasks that some view not advanced. So point is, get this book if you're coding any level of ASP.NET period, advanced or not advanced. You'll use it, trust me.



5. This books is obsolete as of today (2007). It consists of code snips in C#, but no complete examples. Like another reviewer wrote, nothing works after the first "hello world" sample. If you already know ASP.NET, I suppose this book is somewhat useful, but the book is verbose; why spend a whole chapter (Chap. 2) on Visual Studio 2005? If the purpose of the book was a "how to", showing step by step how to build an ASP.NET project, then I could understand this inclusion, but the book is not a "how to" (other than a trivial example, I didn't find a single complete "how to" in the entire 1300 page book).
   
   Avoid like the plague--a complete waste of money and paper.