1. Introduction
2. Understanding types and assemblies
3. Case study: a video poker machine
4. Working with ADO.NET and databases
5. Developing remote services
6. Developing XML Web services
7. Creating the Windows Forms user interface
8. Creating the Web Forms user interface

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I was most impressed by the sample application that was chosen and the way it was consistently built upon in each different chapter as it was modified to take advantage of various .NET features. It was also refreshing to see a sample application that wasn't a shopping cart or store, since these have been done to death. The samples are all in C# exclusively, which is fine with me but I'm sure a problem for some. The sample code is all available from the book's website, and with minimal effort can be compiled and run locally.

Grimes' approach in this book is a no-nonsense, waste-no-time exploration of MS .NET. By page 4 of the introduction, the book has already covered the CLR and moved on to the first sample program. Obviously not a hand-holding beginner's text, MS .NET for Programmers moves at a fast pace as it summarizes and overviews the key parts of the entire .NET framework. Chapter 3 introduces a poker game engine that is used as the foundation for sample applications throughout the rest of the book. By the end of the book, this poker game engine will have been used to power almost a dozen different versions of the game, including a web forms and a rich Windows Forms client. The game is a great sample application for a number of reasons. It is understandable regardless of business background, unlike many industry-specific examples. It's fun to play with once you get it working, and it's easy to expand to include details like transactional money handling and distributed play scenarios. The author actually wrote some video poker game software in the mid-1980s, so the code he presents is very well thought out and complete with regard to its coverage of the rules of video poker.

The following topics are covered by the book:

• .NET Internals - CLR, IL, data types, and Assemblies
• ADO.NET
• Windows Forms
• Remoting
• XML Web Services
• COM
• MSMQ
• ASP.NET and Web Forms
• Mobile Internet Toolkit
• C#

The author has a strong grasp on the .NET framework. The examples and explanations go well beyond just regurgitating Microsoft's documentation. Apart from the numerous poker-based scenarios, there are other examples, such as a compiler that is built in chapter 2 to demonstrate low level IL and reflection functionality. I personally really enjoyed the poker-based examples, and I plan to build a simple not-for-money poker game on ASPAlliance.com that includes a ladder for users to compete with one another. With the source code provided, this will be very easy to implement and I hope will be a lot of fun.

The examples are all available in C# from the book's website.  They come in a ZIP file that, once extracted, includes a batch file that wiill automatically compile all of the samples in one step.  There are a few steps required to get the batch file to work, however.  There are two programs that the batch file relies on, so the location of these files must be known to the file.  The way this is done is to add two directories to the PATH environment variable (under My Computer - Properties - Advanced - Environment Variables).  The first directory to add is needed to get access to the nmake program, which is done by adding this string to the path variable: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET\FrameworkSDK\Bin.  The second is to get access to the C# compiler, csc.exe, which is done by adding this string to the path variable: %SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.0.3705.  With these two paths in the PATH environment variable, the build.bat file should work.  One last thing I did to make using this file easier is to edit it and add the command 'pause' as the last line of the file.  This lets me double-click on the build.bat file in Windows Explorer without automatically closing the window when the compilation is finished (so I can see any errors that were output).

No book is perfect, and I feel obliged to include some critical comments as well in this review. Although I thought the book was excellent overall, there were a few things I felt could have been improved. Although I personally don't use VB.NET very much, I understand that there are many who do -- probably more than who use C#. I think it would be good to have at least offered the sample code in VB.NET online, even if the printed book only focused on C#. Also, I had some problems initially getting the samples to work after I downloaded them.  Finally, some of the samples in the book leave out large and somewhat important parts of the source code they are covering. This is fine, but it would be nice if the omitted files were referenced in the book so that one could pull them up on the computer while reading the chapter and be able to better follow what is going on with the sample.

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• Book's Supporting Website
• Web Poker Example
• Sample Chapter