Those that know me, know that I read quite a few books, both fiction and work-related. As a result, I’m often asked “What’s a good book for X?” or “Do you have any information on Y?”
Well, here it is. The X’s and Y’s of .NET.
Basic Essentials (“must have’s”)
One significant advantage of all three of the above books is that they’re short. I like short books. The first one is a bit longer, but all the examples are in both C# and VB .NET, which adds to the bulk.
Slightly More Advanced (every team needs a copy)
The Best of the Rest
|
Title |
Author |
Publisher |
Comments |
|
Code Complete 2nd Edition |
Steve McConnell |
Microsoft Press |
I am forced to admit that I haven’t yet read this one. It’s been sitting on my desk for several months, but other things keep moving ahead of it. It comes highly recommended from people I trust, however. |
|
Object Thinking |
David West |
Microsoft Press |
This is a great book. Reading it makes me feel like a first-year college student in a graduate-level class, though. It’s a hard read. |
|
C# Design Patterns: A Tutorial |
James W. Cooper |
Addison-Wesley |
A smart developer has a good book on patterns at his/her disposal. The best of these are written for Java developers, typically. This is a good .NET one. (C#) |
|
Professional Design Patterns in VB .NET: Building Adaptable Applications |
Tom Fischer, John Slater, Pete Stromquist, Chaur G. Wu |
Apress |
A smart developer has a good book on patterns at his/her disposal. The best of these are written for Java developers, typically. This is a good .NET one. (VB .NET) |
|
Refactoring to Patterns |
Joshua Kerievsky |
Addison-Wesley |
What was that I was saying about patterns and Java? Well, in spite of its Java-centric view, this is a great book on both refactoring and patterns. |
|
Applied XML Programming for Microsoft .NET |
Dino Esposito |
Microsoft Press |
Everything Dino Esposito writes is fantastic. But he digs very deeply, so be prepared to spend some time digesting his writings. |
There are a few others that I’m looking at now, that will probably end up on this list, but that’s the list for now. I realize there’s not much here for the extreme programming folks, but I’m working on it. If you feel I’ve left something off, let me know. I’ll read it and see if I agree. :-)
Coming soon, “The .NET URL’s”