Foreword


There is no substitute for experience. This is especially true when the goal of the exercise is to transmit that experience. As you'll see when you start reading Programming in the .NET Environment, the authors ”Damien Watkins, Mark Hammond, and Brad Abrams ”have experience to spare with Microsoft .NET development, as well as the ability to explain clearly what they know.

Damien Watkins was a member of the first wave of outside developers recruited to join Project 7, a joint project between Microsoft and a number of universities to develop the next generation of COM.

Mark Hammond, probably best known for his extensive work on the Win32 extensions to Python, was recruited into Project 7 at about the same time as Damien, when the Project 7 team thought that Python should be one of the first languages ported to the .NET platform.

Brad Abrams is a lead program manager on the .NET Framework team at Microsoft, and leader of the team responsible for the Common Language Specification (CLS). He has been involved with the design and implementation of the .NET Framework from the very beginning.

While the .NET Framework builds on Microsoft's experience with the Win32 API and component-based programming, it is different enough from any of its antecedents that it takes some time for a developer to get used to the environment. There are some fundamental shifts in thinking that have to be made before you can be efficient.

As a simple example, take the area of memory management. In Win32 programming, memory and resource leakage were major headaches . In .NET programming, the garbage-collected managed heap resolves most of those kinds of problems automatically. On the other hand, having garbage collection doesn't absolve the programmer of responsibility for good design ”and the explanation you'll find here of how the .NET memory management system works will give you a leg up on designing your structures intelligently.

The CLR's security system provides two different security models, Role Based Security and Evidence Based Security. You're probably familiar with Role Based Security from working with Windows NT roles, users, and groups. Evidence Based Security, on the other hand, is probably a whole new kettle of fish for you. Watkins and his coauthors explain this new model in a concrete way, making it easy for you to take full advantage of this powerful new platform feature.

While the subject of the Framework Class Libraries (FCL) is a huge one, requiring thousands of pages to cover it in detail, you'll find the short introduction to the FCL in this book an excellent way to get started. Again, experience tells : the authors explain the principles behind the library design as well as telling you how to use the classes.

You're in good hands.

”Jeffrey Richter



Programming in the .NET Environment
Programming in the .NET Environment
ISBN: 0201770180
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 146

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net