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CLR via C#, Second Edition

CLR via C#
Author: Jeffrey Richter
Pages: 693
Published: 2006

I learned all the internal details about NT reading Advanced Windows (whose last edition was titled Programming Applications for Microsoft Windows) by Jeffrey Richter, co-founder of Wintellect. I like how he writes his books. He is able to cover a broad range of topics without being too dense when presenting them and with the right balance between technical text and examples. I have been programming C# (mostly in my spare time) since Microsoft released it. But until this time, I didn’t have time enough to study the language and all the infrastructure thoroughly. And when I discovered this book, I knew that it was time to master .NET and C#.

CLR via C# is a book dedicated to CLR. It is not a book about C#. C# is the language used for all the samples in the book. The author makes emphasis in how the implementation of C# is layered above .NET. Whenever there is an important detail in the interaction between C# and .NET it is described by the author. And although the book is published by Microsoft, Richter holds a critical role with all the aspects that are presented about .NET noting where things can be improved, where Microsoft is working for the next version and why certain decisions were chosen.

The book is divided into five parts:

• CLR Basics: About internal details of the CLR’s Execution Model and what assemblies are and how they are deployed.
• Working with Types: Information about type fundamentals, namespaces, castings, boxing and type operators.
• Designing Types: Dedicated to methods, properties and events.
• Essential Types: About strings, enumerated, arrays, interfaces, delegates and generics.
• CLR Facilities: This is, in my opinion, the more interesting part of the book: Exceptions, Garbage Collection, CLR Hosting, Reflection, Asynchronous Operations and Threads Synchronization. I really liked the chapter about Exceptions. It is especially well written.

As all the books written by Jeffery Richter, I recommend this book. If you are going to fight with the .NET Framework this book is a must have in your bookshelf.

Rating: 8 / 10