Summary

This book is basically a cookbook of some of the different technologies available in .Net in conjunction with numerous 'simple' application framework components that the author has created around them in order to demonstrate how aan application framework can be developed. The author has called his own particular framework model the SAF - Simplified Application Framework.

Content

Having given the reader an overview of application framworks: what they are and why they are an important architectural construct behind any application, he then delves into the various framework components that make up his SAF. Namely:

- Caching
- Configuration
- Event Notification
- Windows Services
- Message Queues
- Authorisation and Authentication
- Cryptography
- Transactions

In each and every case, the author first explains the underlying .Net technology and then proceeds to utilise it, by creating framework component(s) around it in a very plain and straight-forward manner. The author also delves into some common design patterns, such as class factories, strategy  and the publish/subscribe model (to named a few) in an effort to both explain and utilise them inside his SAF components. At the very end of the book there are also two chapters devoted to creating simple document and workflow components, which are most commonly seen in business to business (B2B) applications.

Comments

Whilst I found this book easy to read, with some very interesting and vey pertinent items of interest, I never felt like the book was a complete "whole" application framework  ... hence my "cookbook" reference in the summmary. That is not to say that this book is without merit. I thoroughly enjoyed the "split" chapter approach that the author took in first explaining the technology area before creating the actual framework component. The code is nicely dispersed among the text and the diagrams are clear and informative. The only downside here, and a small one at that, was that the text was not fully proof-read. The odd grammatical error had me back-tracking and 'guessing' as to the intent of the text.

Of particular note is the fact that there is a lot of configuration setup in all of the framwork sections discussed in the book. Configuration is the one SAF component that is used extensively throughout the rest of the SAF components - as you would expect, so it's worth spending some extra time becoming really familiar with it before going on.

For what its worth, this is only the second book on application frameworks that I have read to date ... and although I don't think that this one is as good as the last one that I read, I do think that it is well worth reading. In essence I may not reach for it initially, but I also can't see me offloading it to the local library any time soon either ... which is what I tend to do with unwanted / out of date material.