A lot of people ask me what books I recommend, especially for starting
out with .NET, so I've compiled a list of the ones that I like or use on
a frequent basis. I go through a lot of books, and many of them are not
on this list, so the ones here are the ones that made the cut for me.
.NET
ASP.NET Unleashed
by Stephen Walther
This is probably the best all around ASP.Net book out there to date even
though it is a VB.Net book <g>. The book is very comprehensive and covers
all of the major development issues nicely and although it's huge book
it's very readable and the content is valuable. The samples are clear and
useful and most importantly this book is easy to read and follow along
both from the writing style as well as the layout. It also works well as
a reference as most of the samples are short and to the point and
immediately useful.
Essential ASP.NET
by Fritz Onion
This is the essential book if you want to know how ASP.NET works.
This book has excellent architectural detail and lots of useful
information and tips about how to take advantage of lower level features
of ASP.NET. It has the best discussion of the low level Web Server
hookups from IIS to ASP.NET I've seen in a book. This is also a very
tight and readable book - no tome and not a lot of excess information.
Fritz's writing is excellent explaining complex topics in very
understandable and readable terms. This book rocks!
Programming Microsoft ASP.Net
by Dino Esposito
This book too delves underneath the covers. I'm a big fan of Dino's
writing, and this book is a typical Dino book.
If you're interested in the inner workings of ASP.Net and would like to
understand how things work behind the scenes this book is excellent.
It's geared at the developer who already has an understanding of ASP.Net
and it then proceeds to delve into more detail of the architecture that
really makes you understand *why* things work the way they do in
ASP.Net. For me this resulted in a number of 'Aha' moments, that really
have helped me work more efficiently with the various ASP.Net controls.
There are also some very useful, but fairly involved examples in this
book which are great both for understanding the technology as well as
being reusable. I can't recommend this book enough but understand that
it is more along the lines of a deep techie book rather than a hands on
book.
Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming
by Jeffrey Richter
This is an excellent introduction to how the .Net framework works at a
relatively low level. This book is covers a lot of ground, and is
written in Jeff's usual readable style. I've found a lot of insights in
this book especially when I was first learning .Net. This book serves as
a good foundation on many of the principles that .Net is based on. This
book is focused on C#, but there's also a VB version of this book
available now.
Expert C# (or VB.NET) Business
by Rocky Lhotka
This is an excellent, excellent book that discusses in great detail the
architecture behind building business objects on the .NET framework.
Although I don't agree with all the technological choices made for the
framework presented in this book, Rocky does an outstanding job of
explaining his choices and alternatives and why he chose the path he
took. This is an advanced text and assumes a solid understanding of
.NET, but Rocky's writing is very readable.
Programming .NET Components
Juval Lowry
This is another excellent advanced .NET book, that is both readable and
acts as an excellent reference. It's funny this book has a certain air
of arrogance to it as is Juval's style I guess. But for good reason
since Juval knows what he's talking about. This book concisely covers
advanced topics. The chapters on serialization and multi-threading alone
is worth this book.
A Programmer's Introduction to C#...
by Eric Gunnerson
When I first got this book I didn't think much of it, but I've ended up
using this book quite a bit to look things up quickly. It's a great reference for C# programming although it's very
terse and dry. But for looking up concepts and programming blocks
and some concise and useful examples this book is great as it's straight
to the point. Not a good
book to learn C# though.
Inside Visual Studio .NET (for Add-ins and Macros)
by Brian Johnson, Craig Skibo, Marc Young
If you plan on building add-ins for .NET or write macros this is the
book to get. I have 3 or four books on this topic and this is the only
one I actually use for looking up information on building add-ins. This
book is the best of the bunch, but even so it lacks advanced information
- you'll need to find the more complex stuff on the Web.
Software Development
Joel on Software
Joel Spolsky
This book is very entertaining and tought provoking read on the process
of software development. It's a bunch of short very insightful and
practical essays taken from
Joel's Web site. It's not a technical book, but deals with high
level and human aspects of software development. Some of the essays are
common sense, others are downright hilarious and others make you think,
especially if you are like me not always 100% on 'official' software
development practices. This book is a very enjoyable read.
System Programming
Advanced Windows (3rd Ed)
by Jeffrey Richter
This is one of my favorite books of all time. It has
everything you ever wanted to know about Windows internals and advanced
development topics like multi-threading, memory management, using memory
mapped files, named pipes etc. Jeff has a way of making even the most
complicated topics understandable and this book has helped me on
numerous occasions figure out a tough technical problem that I thought I
had no chance of solving.
Visual FoxPro
Internet Applications with Visual FoxPro 6.0
By Rick Strahl
An introduction to Web Development with Visual FoxPro. Although this
book is a VFP 6.0 book that includes some technologies that are not
necessary recommended anymore (FoxISAPI) it still includes a lot of good
information and guidelines for Web development.
WebRAD: Building Database Applications on the Web with Visual FoxPro and
West Wind Web Connection
By Randy Pearson, Harold Chattaway, Whil Hentzen,
Barbara Peisch
This is book is a great addon for Web Connection that provides
information that simply wouldn't have fit into the product
documentation. Pepperred with useful samples and great day to day advice
this book is a must have add on for Web Connection developers.
Advanced Object Oriented Programming with Visual FoxPro
by Markus Egger
This book is a great introduction to object oriented programming
starting with the basics and working its way up to day to day practices
and patterns in development. This book is also very readable, especially
since it's written by a big Austrian guy <g>.
