Microsoft .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise (PRO-Developer) [Paperback]

This is an extremely good book on the use of patterns in developing enterprise architectures. It provides a discursive overview of the different patterns that are available for designing enterprise solutions and in so doing compares, contrasts and weighs up and pros and cons of different patterns and approaches to fulfilling your business needs. The book is broken into two parts.

The first part introduces you to software architecture and the concept of patterns and provides an introduction to UML, which is of great use in communicating design. This part is important if you are new to enterprise architecture.

The second part provides a details study of how to design four key layers in an enterprise architecture: Business, Service, Data Access and Presentation. In each of these chapters the book discusses in detail the needs of each layer and the different options available, including the many different patterns that are out there that can be incorporated in the design of each layer. The book also discusses various tools that are out there and does so with impartiality towards the vendor. The only partiality this book seems to have is that the appropriate technique is used for your individual business problem, and the weight of what would appear to be substantial real world experience in developing enterprise solutions. (N.B. it is a .Net oriented book)

This book almost comes across as a user guide for Fowlers book "Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture" (ISBN: 0321127420), which I also have. The latter is perhaps dry reading in the sense that it is a reference book on patterns, but this book is good because it helps you understand which patter to use. I feel that these two books are best used together and should be on every (.Net) Enterprise Architects desk. N.B. Fowlers book is not platform specific.

Andrea and Dino made an excellent job, their book is a "reference of references", I mean that it groups concepts that are spreaded across many books (sometimes written years ago, but still valid and irreplaceable) from a different and real-world perspective and, most important, it offers an UP-TO-DATE architectural guidance, nomeclature and methodology applied with tools, languages and technologies available today (say Ajax, WCF, LINQ-to-SQL, Entity Framework and so on).
I appriciated each single page, from the in-depth explainations of a pattern, to the "Murpy's law of the Chapter".
A complete companion solution (Nortwind Starter Kit) is also available online.

I was disappointed with this book. I had hoped for a detailed practical guide to enterprise architecture using .Net. What I got was a wide ranging summary of a lot of topics that are covered better in other books.

Do we really need yet another book that explains coupling and cohesion?

The first chapter is a discussion of what Architecture is. Unless you're absolutely new to all of this it will contain little that you don't know already.

Chapter two is a primer on UML. Again, if you're reading this book, chances are you already have at least two other books that cover this stuff. In fairness UML diagrams are dotted throughout the rest of the book, so it's fair that they give the back ground for those new to this stuff.

Chapter three is more newbie oriented principles and practice. If you're making the step up from Programmer to Architect then you really should know virtually everything in the first three chapters before you start. If you don't you should be learning this stuff from better more detailed books.

The remaining four chapters cover four layers in a typical architecture - Data, Business, Service, Presentation.

There's some good stuff in here, but it all feels like a summarized version of other books. The mention of .Net in the title is misleading. There are examples using .Net, but this is not a .Net oriented book.

At times it feels like the authors are deliberately trying to annoy the reader. On page 333 (towards the end of the book) they discuss Stored Procs, and quite rightly acknowledge that anyone reading this far probably knows what a Stored Proc is ... a subroutine.

They then quote Wikipedia of all things to explain to us what a subroutine is!!!!

It's bad enough that you are telling me what a subroutine is, but it is frightening to think that you felt the need to check Wikipedia for a definition.

One of the reviews mentioned that this is a good companion to Fowler's book. I couldn't disagree more. If you are the type of developer that has read Fowler's book then you will get very little from this. In fact you'll spend a good deal of the time being annoyed.

I'm giving the book two stars because if you don't know any of the stuff in here then it's probably a reasonable introduction.

Microsoft's Resource Roadmap on the back of the book suggests that this falls in the Focused Topics category. Deep coverage of advanced techniques and capabilities, promotes full mastery of a Microsoft Technology.

If the book was pegged in the Developer Step By Step category...Prepares and informs new to topic programmers, I'd have probably given it 4 stars. I still wouldn't have forgiven the Wikipedia reference.