Introducing .NET 4.0: With Visual Studio 2010 is a book that many day-to-day developers will benefit from. It provides a great overview of what’s new in .NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 – an obvious statement I know, however what sets this book apart is the fact that it makes reference to the new 4.0 content with references to both the earlier 3.5, 2.0 and 1.1 material. You’ll also find that the author chooses to refer to the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) documentation using URLs as opposed to either copying the information verbatim or paraphrasing it some way: a refreshing change. This means that for much of this book, you are presented with straight-to-the-point information about the highs, the lows and the gotchas to look out for when you are building applications using Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET 4.0 platform. If you need a book that covers the salient technical points without going into huge amounts of detail, this is the book for you.
Alex is an experienced developer, he discusses his own personal experiences with many of the .NET 4.0 technologies, providing us with an insight into their history, their strengths and weaknesses – it’s all valuable content that can be hard to source elsewhere. And what’s more, given that this is Alex’s first book, he has done a terrific job: his writing style is contemporary, elegant and is easy to read.
Why should I buy this book?
Don’t be put off by the use of “Introducing” in this book’s title. It’s a book all developers should buy, from beginners to seasoned professionals. Beginners will benefit from the coverage of features, Alex essentially provides a roadmap of the things you need to look at in .NET 4.0 in order to gain the most benefit.
What’s in it for me? What’s this “roadmap” you mention?
Alex covers all of the bases with chapters about the following topics: Visual Studio IDE and MEF, Languages and Dynamic Changes, CLR and BCL Changes, Parallel, Workflow Foundation 4, Windows Communication Foundation, Entity Framework, WCF Data Services, ASP.NET, Microsoft AJAX Library, jQuery, ASP.NET MVC], Silverlight] Overview,WPF 4 and Silverlight 3 and Azure. This should provide you with a one-stop shop regarding the current .NET 4.0 technologies and tools: a great resource, especially for newbies, those developers moving to .NET 4.0 from the Java world, etc. and experienced developers looking to make use of new material in their applications.
One of the most common questions I get asked at developer events is “how do I get to know .NET?” – this book is a great source of up-to-date information, “newbies” and those moving to .NET 4.0 from other platforms should rush out and buy this book. Seasoned developers will enjoy the to-the-point writing style, the short code examples and the author’s reach out to “subject matter” experts from the field – if you need to know more, the links are there for newbies and long-in-the-tooth developers!
This book sits nicely in between Pro C# 2010 And The .NET 4.0 Platform 5th Edition by Andrew Troelsen (Hardcover – 3 Mar 2010) and Pro ASP.NET 4.0 In C# 2010 4th Edition by Matthew MacDonald (Paperback – 3 Mar 2010). Alex’s book provides all the groundwork you’ll need in order to be able to tackle the works of Troelsen and MacDonald – Alex’s book is available now!
What are you waiting for? Now that Visual Studio 2010 has been released, it's time to get ahead!
Further links
Alex’s web-site
The APress web page for Alex’s book
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