C# is a relatively new language that was unveiled to the world when Microsoft announced the first

version of its .NET Framework in July 2000. Since then its popularity has rocketed, and it has arguably

become the language of choice for both Windows and Web developers who use the .NET Framework.

Part of the appeal of C# comes from its clear syntax, which derives from C/C++ but simplifies some

things that have previously discouraged some programmers. Despite this simplification, C# has retained

the power of C++, and there is now no reason not to move into C#. The language is not difficult and

it’s a great one to learn elementary programming techniques with. This ease of learning, combined with

the capabilities of the .NET Framework, make C# an excellent way to start your programming career.

It is nearly impossible today to write enterprise software without the use of one or more relational

databases. Granted, in some cases the data is transient and not stored in a database, but

for the most part software needs to consume and manipulate the data in a database. Easy enough,

right? You put the lime in the coconut and you’ve got yourself a data-aware software application.

Wrong! There are hundreds of ways to connect software systems to databases and thousands of

people who think they have the skeleton key for data access layers. I can’t say that I have the

end-all pattern for data access, but I do have an efficient, repeatable way to apply industry

design patterns to build scalable object-oriented persistence layers.

Object-relational mapping (ORM) has been a gray area in Microsoft

By this point in the text, you have a solid handle on the C# language and the details of the .NET assembly

format. Part 5 leverages your newfound knowledge by exploring a number of commonly used services

found within the base class libraries, including the creation of multithreaded application, file I/O, and

database access using ADO.NET. This part also covers the construction of distributed applications using

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), workflow-enabled applications that use the Windows

Workflow Foundation (WF) API and the LINQ to XML API.

The purpose of this book is to explain how to develop applications and reusable classes for

the .NET Framework. Specifically, this means that I intend to explain how the CLR works and

the facilities that it offers. I’ll also discuss various parts of the Framework Class Library (FCL).

No book could fully explain the FCL—it contains literally thousands of types now, and this

number continues to grow at an alarming rate. Therefore, here I’m concentrating on the core

types that every developer needs to be aware of.

One might argue that a book about code is somehow behind the times—that code is no

longer the issue; that we should be concerned about models and requirements instead.

Indeed some have suggested that we are close to the end of code. That soon all code will

be generated instead of written. That programmers simply won’t be needed because business

people will generate programs from specifications.

These are exciting times to be a .NET developer, and Visual Studio 2010 (VS2010) and the .NET 4.0

framework have brought a bewildering number of changes. But fear not! In this book I will be getting you

up to speed on these enhancements, and also taking a brief look at some of the important out-of-band

releases, such as ASP.NET MVC, Silverlight, and WCF Data Services. There is some cool stuff in this

release, and most of it is not that tricky (with the exception of variance and parallelization) to get to grips

with.

ASP.NET is Microsoft’s platform for developing web applications. Using ASP.NET, you can create ecommerce

shops, data-driven portal sites, and just about anything else you can find on the Internet.

Best of all, you don’t need to paste together a jumble of HTML and script code in order to program the

Web. Instead, you can create full-scale web applications using nothing but code and a design tool such

as Visual Studio 2008.