Developing Applications with Visual Studio .NET
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
.NET is a whole new way to program. It has taken me a while to get used to using it, but now I feel that .NET is the future of developing code. The two main features that .NET brings are the runtime and the Framework Class Library. The runtime executes all .NET code and provides a secure environment. The Framework Class Library is available to all .NET code regardless of the language that is used to create that code. The library is a culmination of all the libraries that Win32 developers are accustomed to using, and some APIs are provided through a new paradigm, but others are mere mirrors of the Win32 APIs that they replace. The significant point is that all of the APIs are accessed in the same way, so the application developer no longer has to learn multiple ways to access libraries (DLL exported functions, class libraries, template libraries, COM). The intention is to put more focus on using the APIs than on accessing them. I have spent a considerable amount of time determining how .NET works and how the various classes in the library are related. On occasion it was a joy to see how .NET had provided a new API that put more power in the hands of the developer, and on a few occasions I was frustrated to see that .NET had provided a solution that reduced the facilities offered to the developer. In this book I want to give you the benefit of my odyssey through .NET. I will enthuse when .NET does it right, and I will tell you straight when .NET does it wrong. One thing is clear: .NET is here to stay. Expect in the future that Microsoft will put more and more emphasis on .NET. Your future as a developer will be intimately entwined with .NET, and by becoming familiar with .NET now, you'll ensure that you'll be ready for whatever Microsoft decides to release in the future. Intended Audience I have deliberately decided to target C++ Win32 developers. This book has no VB.NET code and only the barest minimum of ASP.NET. If you want to develop in VB.NET, or you want to develop Web applications with ASP.NET, there are other excellent books that will suit you better than this one. I also make no excuses about the fact that this book is packed full of details, and in places it touches on tough concepts. I have worked hard to glean the information that I present in this book. I didn't have access to privileged knowledge. What you see here is the result of writing many hundreds of test applications, of pouring over IL generated with ILDASM, and of single-stepping through code with the .NET debuggers. Where I present code, you can be assured that what you see is code that I have written and tested. When I describe how an API works, you can be assured that I have determined that behavior by actually trying out the code. I have worked hard to write this book, and I expect you to work hard as you read through it. That way you'll have the enlightening learning experience that I had. What to Expect My intention when writing this book was to give you a grand tour of developing applications with Visual Studio.NET. As with all grand tours, you have to do a lot of preparation before you can start. For this reason the book is split into three parts: The first four chapters describe the .NET Framework, Chapters 5 through 7 describe the tools in Visual Studio.NET that you can use to develop applications, and Chapters 8 and 9 explain how to develop and debug applications. The chapters follow a logical progression from a basic description of the .NET Runtime, through a description of the framework and the tools to develop .NET executables and libraries, to developing applications with the Visual Studio. NET design environment. I made a deliberate choice to leave an introduction of Visual Studio.NET until Chapter 5 because much of the development that you can do with .NET can be done with a simple text editor like Notepad (indeed, I urge you to use Notepad as you work through the first few chapters). However, at the point that your project grows larger than a handful of files, at the point that you move away from trivial resources and XML files to use more real-life files, you'll start to realize that you need a more accomplished editor and tools to help you develop your application. It is at this point that you'll need to use Visual Studio.NET. If you use VS.NET before you've gone through the details of .NET's facilities, you won't appreciate the tools that VS.NET provides. I also want to give you the impression that there is a life beyond wizard-generated code. The following is a brief description of what to expect in the chapters of this book. Chapter 1: .NET Runtime In this chapter I start exactly where I should: right at the beginning with a description of the .NET Runtime. The runtime executes all .NET code, so in this chapter I describe the basic concepts of the runtime and how it locates and runs code. I describe the languages that you can use and various .NET features used to generate events, to provide error information, and to access code outside of the current code module. Then I describe the .NET facilities for adding type information to a code module, and how you can add custom type information. Finally, I explain how code is packaged and the new mechanism for locating and loading that code. Chapter 2: Framework Class Library I use this chapter to give an overview of what I consider to be the "core" library. The framework library is available to all .NET languages and can be considered to be a culmination of the various APIs that Win32 developers are accustomed to using. The Framework Class Library contains many classes, and I have chosen to explain just a few. These are the classes that you are most likely to use--the classes without which you are unlikely to be able to do any .NET development. I explain threading, basic input/output using streams to files and to the console, the debugging classes, and collection classes. Once I have made the foundation with the fundamental classes, I follow up with a description of the user interface classes to allow you to create windows and draw in those windows. Finally, I describe what I call the "other" classes. Strictly speaking, they are not core classes, but they are important for application development, so I give an overview of these classes and how to use them. Chapter 3: Contexts and Remoting .NET provides a new level of code isolation: application domains, which I introduced in Chapter 1. In this chapter I explain how code in one application domain can access code in another domain: .NET remoting. .NET defines an idea called context--domain membership is one property of a context--and .NET needs to take special action to allow calls to be made across contexts. I explain how cross-context calls are made and how you can change the way that .NET manages these calls. This chapter explains in detail how .NET remoting works, the types of objects that can be accessed remotely, how long they live, and the security aspects of accessing those objects. Finally, the chapter has a description of asynchronous programming, including how exceptions and return values are handled when a call is made asynchronously. Chapter 4: Interoperation and COM+ Interoperation is required to allow your .NET code to access native code. In this chapter I cover all aspects of interoperation from accessing DLLs, through Platform Invoke, to accessing COM and COM+ components. I start by describing how Platform Invoke works and contrast this to how you can access native C++ code from managed C++. I also explain marshaling non-simple types, how exceptions are handled, and "unsafe" code. In the second half of the chapter I explain how interoperation with COM and COM+ is achieved. .NET provides tools to allow you to use COM objects in .NET code and to use .NET objects in COM code. I show you how to use these tools and describe how COM concepts like events, aggregation, and registration are achieved. The final part of the chapter explains the .NET classes that allow you to write COM+ classes. Chapter 5: Visual Studio.NET Environment By this point in the book you should have a good grounding in the facilities that .NET offers and the classes that you can use. In this chapter I introduce you to the facilities in Visual Studio.NET that you can use to develop .NET code. I start with a general description of the user interface: the various windows and toolbars that are provided. I then give a brief description of the code-generating wizards and the UI features of VS.NET that you can use to change the code that is generated. In the latter half of the chapter I explain how to manage your code and the tools that you can use to search in your code and to get help. Finally, I explain the Toolbox and how to use external tools. Chapter 6: Creating and Building Solutions In this chapter I look in detail at how you create and build solutions. A solution is a collection of projects, and a project contains source files that are compiled to create an output. I start this chapter by explaining the various project types that you can add to a solution and the various classes that you can add to those projects. Following the general theme of this book, I explain only C++ and C# classes, but I do include a description of the C++ projects that create native code. In the second half of the chapter I explain how to build and deploy solutions. I describe how to start a compilation, and how to customize it. I also explain how you can deploy the outputs from a solution and the various project types that are provided to do this. Chapter 7: Visual C++.NET C++ is the most flexible of the .NET languages. Visual C++ allows you to develop both native and managed code, as well as a mixture of the two. I start this chapter by describing the new features in ATL, beginning with a description of Visual C++ attributes and an explanation of how these help your development. Then I explain ATL Server, which is used to write ISAPI extensions for Web applications and Web Services. The rest of the chapter is concerned with managed code, and I explain how managed C++ differs from native C++ in ...
Book Info
An in-depth guide that takes Windows programming to the next level: creating .NET applications that leverage the prior knowledge and experience of C++ Win32 programmers. Softcover.
Developing Applications with Visual Studio .NET
Developing Applications with Visual Studio .NET,Richard Grimes,Addison-Wesley Professional,0201708523,Application software,Computer Books: General,Computers,Computers - Languages / Programming,Design,Desktop Publishing,Development,Internet - General,Microcomputer Application Software,Microsoft .NET,Microsoft Visual studio,Programming - Software Development,Programming Languages - C++,Programming Languages - General,Web sites,Computers / Networking / General
Fun Book:
Recommended Books