MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-505): Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.5 Windows® Forms Application Development

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-505): Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.5 Windows® Forms Application Development
Authors
Matthew A. Stoecker, Steven J. Stein
ISBN
0735626375
Published
25 Feb 2009
Purchase online
amazon.com

Announcing an all-new SELF-PACED TRAINING KIT designed to help maximize your performance on 70-505, the required exam for the new Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) certification for.NET Framework 3.5 Windows Forms Application Development. This 2-in-1 kit includes the official Microsoft study guide, plus practice tests on CD to help you assess your skills.

Page 2 of 2
  1. Editorial Reviews
  2. Customer Reviews

Customer Reviews

S. Wolfe said
I'll keep this short: The book doesn't cover everything, nor does it cover the included topics in depth. However it's strongest attribute is that it's written in a style that keeps the information concise.

The target-audience of the book is a developer who has at least a year's experience in WinForms--so much of the book should be review for you. This book does a good job of being fairly up-front with indicating whether you should be reading a lesson in-depth or skimming over it.

My only warning to readers is that you should at least read the description of *every* Excercise at the end of the lession. The Lesson text doesn't always tell you the list of what the excercises cover, and in some cases (esp. with the very short lessons) the excercises contain additional info that's useful. As always test takers should also pull up the exam guidelines of Microsoft Learning and make sure you are aware of the topics at the time of your testing.

Michael J. Mcmahon Jr. said
This book is an excellent high-level review / introduction (depending on your experience) of Windows Forms Application development under the .NET Framework 3.5. The topics covered are vast and reasonably detailed, and I felt that it accurately reflected the exam and its requirements. Combined with the training exam to prompt some additional research, the entire kit is very well-rounded.

The book itself has very few typos and no grammatical errors that come to mind. All but one or two examples are completely correct, without any misleading information. Each chapter covers a related set of topics in fair detail - the first half of the book is more of a blitz review of all the controls and events, whereas the remainder covers most details and intricacies quite well. The only topics I felt could have used more coverage were LINQ, WPF (and deployments), and permissions (at least a review of them). While these are each major topics in other books (LINQ in ADO.NET and WPF & security & deployments in WPF), at least a minor review would have been helpful in sorting out some of the details and making things clearer.

Aside from those minor points - which were taken care of with a quick review of some permissions online - the book text is sufficient to pass the exam. The coverage of DataSets may seem cursory, but such detailed functionality is a topic more suited to ADO.NET, not this exam. Again, the coverage suits the exam. The permissions issues tend to revolve around installation and UAC (in Vista) issues that aren't covered or explained thoroughly. Printer permissions are covered quite well, but most others and the tools involved are not and could use more coverage; if the security models from the 70-536 exam are still in your mind, you'll be fine.

The preparation exams compliment the book very well, pointing out areas that need focus and are not examined thoroughly in the book. For example, the book covers various ToolStrip controls and the exams ask implementation-based questions. The same is true of handling events. Many questions in the preparation exams are very close in substance or intention to the real exam questions. I recommend iterating through the exams several times - more and more interesting or obscure questions will surface as you take them, most of which will prompt a little reading. The one glaring issue I draw with the exam is that it asks how to handle thread exceptions and claims that the AppDomain.UnhandledException event can handle them - this is false, as a little reading on MSDN will show.

In all, I feel this book continues well with most others in giving readers another piece of Microsoft's grand .NET Framework 3.5 programming model. Understanding how rich Windows Forms Applications can be and how to use them is very important, even in the days of WPF. This ties together some of the pillars of .NET 3.5 and provides what I feel to be very good coverage of the topics - more than enough to improve your applications.

Tirelle T. Lee said
It took almost a month for me to get this item. That being said, it was in excellent condition and I would do business with seller again.

Ken Lynch said
While certainly not a comprehensive reference on .NET 3.5 Windows Forms development, this book is an adequate introduction to the material to begin studying for the 70-505 exam.

Each chapter presents a different section of the Skills measured for the exam. These are broken into easily understandable lesson text followed by lab exercises. This combination leaves the reader with a functional understanding of the material that can be built upon by further software development and referencing the Microsoft material online.

I find this approach advantageous because the concept oriented chapters provide a structure to include some best practices, performance, and maintenance topics that are often missing in strictly task or reference oriented documentation.

After passing the exam, this book is still a good reference for reviewing skills that aren't generally utilized in one's day to day programming activities.

Although the book is a good start to prepare for the exam, I think it is not comprehensive enough to be the only resource used.

Igor Basmanov said
This book is similar with MS-TrainingKit (FW-2.0) 70-526. The few chapters and lessons are similar, new lesson in chapter 6 for LINQ.

You might also like...

Comments

Contribute

Why not write for us? Or you could submit an event or a user group in your area. Alternatively just tell us what you think!

Our tools

We've got automatic conversion tools to convert C# to VB.NET, VB.NET to C#. Also you can compress javascript and compress css and generate sql connection strings.

“The difference between theory and practice is smaller in theory than in practice.”