| ASP.NET Distributed Data Applications by Alex Homer and Dave Sussman is a wonderful introduction to building distributed applications in .NET. This book is designed for people who already have an intermediate understanding of .NET, ADO.NET, and XML. If you are new to .NET, you may want to hold off on reading this one for now but it is definitely something you'll want to learn. |
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| The authors start off with an interesting discussion of what distributed applications really are and the different types in .NET. The terminology used here and throughout the book make it easy to understand complex subject matter. The opening chapter attempts to cover a wide variety of topics ranging from Data Access, XML, clients, etc... Each of these are covered in far more detail in future chapters. I'd would have preferred a more indepth discussion of the possibilities when it comes to marshalling objects by value and by reference. These concepts take a little while to digest and it is not always obvious how these incredible capabilities in .NET can be used. It would have made me even more eager to read the rest of the book as quickly as possible. |
| That being said, I had a fairly solid understanding of the capabilities of distributed applications in .NET after the first chapter. Now, I just needed a few examples of how all of this really works. Well, Alex and Dave didn't disappoint. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with the two primary data collection options: Database & XML. |
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| Chapter 2. Components and Data Access |
| Even if you have a solid grasp of ADO.NET, I wouldn't skip this chapter. It goes into great detail about to the different options for serializing datasets and remoting reader objects. Alex and Dave discuss the pro's and con's of each and when to use them. You'll also benefit from their discussion on the various clients (rich vs down-level). There are also more than enough code samples to cover just about any syntax example you'll need. |
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| Chapter 3. Accessing XML Documents |
| Same goes for this chapter. The authors show how to do much of the same things from chapter 2 but do them with straight XML instead. Plus, they discuss the differences between the XmlDocument, XmlTextReader, XPathDocument and when to use them. |
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| Chapter 7. Remoting to .NET Clients Accessing XML Documents |
| This chapter contains the meat for remoting objects by reference and by value over the internet. With .NET, you can serialize an object to make a copy of the object on the client (byval) or create a sort of proxy of the object on the client (byref). With byref, the object resides on the server but the client communicates with it via proxy in the background. Not only will you learn how to remote objects, you'll also learn about incremental downloads in your Windows applications. .NET gives you the ability to update portions of your Windows app rather than the entire executable. It combines the dynamic aspects of HTML and the user friendliness of Windows interfaces. This will definitely spark your imagination for future applications you create. |
| In my opinion, this should have been chapter 2 of the book. Everything leading up to it would have made much more sense. Alex and Dave also cover security aspects of this capability. I'd strongly suggest you read this over a couple of times. |
| The authors touch on some of the complexities/problems with remoting objects by reference. Unfortunately, they pawn the discussion off to the .NET Framework examples by claiming the subject is beyond the scope of the book. On the contrary, that's exactly the type of information you'd expect to get for $49.99 (USD). I expected more from Wrox. |
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| The rest of the chapters deal with the various types of clients that your apps would be accessed by. Those with examples are rich browser clients, down-level browser clients, mobile devices, and executables. Whatever your need, I'm sure one of these sections will be of great use to you. Based on the books I've seen so far, this one is good but I think Distributed .NET Programming in C# is a little better. But, if you have a strong perference towards Wrox books, then Alex and Dave's book might be better suited to you. |
| While your current hardware architechure might not be suited to these applications, study the concept. Over the next couple of years, you'll be expected to do things with remoting you never thought possible. This will undoubtedly be one of those things that separate the men from the boys... |