Introducing .Net 4.0: With Visual Studio 2010 (Expert's Voice in .NET) [ペーパーバック]

When you buy a new television and are luxuriating in it's opulence, it's extra crisp display and hi-fidelity sound, do you read the entire owners manual or do you just read the parts of the owners for the things that are basically new on this model of TV? You already know how to work the television as they are fundamentally all the same but this new model that you've bought may have a built in wireless connection, or options on the sound to change from Stereo to Dolby etc. There is no need to read the entire manual, only the bits that are new to this make and model.

Over the years that I have been a Microsoft .Net programmer I have read literally hundreds of books that are basically re-hashes of previous titles, updated to include what's new in the latest Framework release. For example, when .Net 3.5 was released, I read numerous books that were basically the .Net 3.0 books that were simply updated and expanded to include the new features of .Net 3.5. Whilst this can be a good thing, you have a single reference manual incorporating all you need to know in one place, sometimes you just want a book that only covers the changes in the frameworks. Just place the extra chapters in a separate book. Rather than reading about classes and technologies that you already know, just give me what's new. That is exactly what Introducing .Net 4.0 With Visual Studio 2010 is, for the most part. The book is based on the Beta version of .Net 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 so some things may change by the time of actual release, however those changes are likely to be quite minor.

After a very brief introductory chapter Introducing .Net 4.0 delves straight in with what's been changed, added etc. to Visual Studio 2010. After all, this will (in all likely) be the tool you will use to take advantage of what follows in this book. From there we're off to a couple of chapters detailing changes to in the actual languages (this book is mainly geared towards the C# developer although the author does point out differences in VB.Net as well) and the underlying Common Language Runtime environment. Alex Mackey provides numerous examples liberally sprinkled around the chapters when introducing the new features to show you how they work and how to take advantage of them.

One thing that rather surprised me about this book is that Alex Mackey covers all the bases. It's not just a book for Windows Client developers or Asp.Net developers etc. He has included what's new in the .Net framework for all the technologies even including Silverlight. As an added bonus, the last chapter of the book covers the new Windows Azure framework. Whilst strictly speaking this isn't really part of .Net 4.0, there are tools built into Visual Studio 2010 to help take advantage of the new Azure framework and so it does fit in nicely with the purview of the book.

The book has a nice flowing feel to it and is surprisingly easy to read. Some technical books read more like an SA or university thesis whereas this one reads more like a novel. Packed with information regarding only the new additions and changes to the .Net Framework and Visual Studio.

If you are looking for a book teaching you how to program using Microsoft .Net technologies, then this isn't for you. If you are looking for an all-in-one reference manual on .Net 4.0 then again this book isn't for you. However if you are already a Microsoft .Net programmer and are looking for a book that details only what is new and changed in the upcoming .Net 4.0 framework, give yourself a head start with what's coming around the corner, then this book is for you and comes recommended.

Alex Mackey does a very fine job of giving a very high level overview of the massive amount of changes being introduced with .Net 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010. The first several chapters discuss some of the "core" changes to the framework and IDE. These chapters felt very forced and rushed. Most of the sections were too short to be provide much information but long enough that they left you with the impression that you should have gotten more out of them. I will credit the author that he gave great additional references at the end of every chapter for further reading. That's not to say it was all bad. The sections in Chapter 3 on MEF, Named and Optional Parameters, the VB.NET changes, and Variance were great.

For me the book started to shine after Chapter 5 when the author started tackling some of the specific technologies. In particular Chapter 8 on the Entity Framework was excellent. He did a great job leading into the next chapter about WCF Data Services and bridging the topics together (and with Chapter 7 on WCF).

One chapter that I think is out of place is Chapter 14 - Silverlight Introduction. The author justifies its inclusion in the book because Silverlight released after Visual Studio 2008, but it really does not fall in with .Net 4.0 or Visual Studio 2010. I can't help but to feel that the book real-estate could have been better utilized by delving deeper into some of the other new technologies and the reader left to brush up the basics of Silverlight.

The book is fairly well structured. The only complaint I have about how the book is laid out is that the author occassionally referred to REST and RESTful services starting with Chapter 7 on WCF, but never actually explains it until the last chapter on Azure. The table of contents even lists a section on REST in Chapter 7, but that chapter only mentions it in passing (may it is an issue with my print). Be mindful that I encountered quite a few spelling and grammar errors as well.

With this book you'll get a pretty comprehensive outline of the changes in Microsoft's latest iteration of the .Net Framework and Visual Studio IDE. All that major new or significantly updated technologies get at least some attention. Don't read this book if you aren't already familiar with developing in prior versions.

This book is a smorgasbord of .NET 4.0 goodies. This book does an excellent job of pulling all the new features in .NET 4.0 into one place. It covers the topics in enough detail that you leave the topic understanding what it is about and in many cases with references to find out more.

I am currently working as the SME on some of the Microsoft Learning tracks for Visual Studio 2010, so I have had to dig deep into Visual Studio 2010. I wish I would have had this book at the beginning of the project. I have not found anything missing as far as new features go.

Below is the table of contents from the book.

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Visual Studio IDE and MEF
Chapter 3: Language and Dynamic Changes
Chapter 4: CLR and BCL Changes
Chapter 5: Parallelization and Threading Enhancements
Chapter 6: Windows Workflow Foundation 4
Chapter 7: Windows Communication Foundation
Chapter 8: Entity Framework
Chapter 9: WCF Data Services
Chapter 10: ASPNET
Chapter 11: Microsoft AJAX Library
Chapter 12: jQuery
Chapter 13: ASPNET MVC
Chapter 14: Silverlight Introduction
Chapter 15: WPF 4.0 and Silverlight 3.0
Chapter 16: Windows Azure

The biggest ding to this book is the typos. Holy smokes, editors should not drink on the job. I won't ding the book the book for that.

Another ding is that although they talk about code samples, I cannot find any. They give you the database they used throughout the book, but I have found no use for it without the code to attach to it.

All in all I recommend this book to anyone interested in getting up to speed quickly with the new features in .NET 4.0. It is nice to have them all in one place. It is also nice to have them in a book that does not cover every feature. For example an ASP.NET 4.0 book will have every feature in the 4.0 release along with all the past releases.

The book is definitely worth the purchase.