Practical Mono (Expert's Voice in Open Source) [Hardcover]

At first glance, you would think that Practical Mono is yet another

introductory book about C# and Mono, but all of that drastically

changes the moment you look at the book's table of contents and see

the variety of topics it covers and the lengths to which the author

goes to describe the more important details.

The book gently eases the into what .NET and Mono are giving a

historical background for each. What I found very interesting is the

fact the author takes time to explain about .NET in the real world,

and ties this to Mono to give the reader a clear idea of how any why

Mono was started and what the reader can do to participate in this

effort.

Since a lot of people using Mono might be coming from a traditional

.NET environment, the author expects those people to be used to

certain development tools. To that effect, the second chapter in the

book is dedicated to introducing the reader to development tools that

can be used with Mono, especially Mono Develop. This gives the reader

some heads up about what can be used instead of their conventional

development tools and makes sure you start off on solid grounds.

Having gotten the user all set up and ready for action, the book then

moves on to introduce the author to C#. This is a subtle introduction

that eases the user into what C# is and how the language works.

Chapter 3 comes in very handy when you want to brush up on your C#

skills or are new to C#. the author continues to give the reader more

information about C# in a more detailed fashion in Chapter 4,

"Learning C#: Beyond the Basics". This chapter goes into some

nitty-gritty detail about C# classes, exceptions, and all round more

advanced C# topics.

Chapter 5 moves into the more exotic areas of .NET that deal with the

CLR, IL, assemblies, and the general assembly cache (GAC). This

chapter is very helpful if the reader wishes to acquire in depth info

of how the .NET environment works. Other discussed topics here are

garbage collection, application domains, and the class library. This

is one of those chapters that make this book an excellent

recommendation for both novice and advanced users of C# and .NET.

The first 5 chapters have made sure the user is very knowledgeable

about what Mono is, what .NET is, what C# is, and how all of them

relate to each other. They have also explained C# and introduced the

reader to its syntax and advanced features. Starting with Chapter 6,

the "Practical" bit from the books title starts to kick in quite

strongly. If its a book with both theoretical and real world

information that you want, then the coming chapters are really going

to quench your thirst.

Chapter 6 goes right into the heart of on of .NET's most desired

features, Windows Forms. The author explains what Windows Forms is,

what GDI+ is, how to implement a good user interface, and gives real

world examples of how to do all of that introducing the reader to

Windows Forms' various controls. A nice section that is mentioned in

several chapters is the "Whats New in Version 2.0?" section that

informs the reader about what to expect in the new version of .NET in

regard to that particular topic.

Because the author knows that not all people will be using Windows

Forms to design their graphical interfaces, he goes into GTK+ and

Glade and takes up a complete chapter explaining what they are and how

they can be used instead of Windows Forms. Chapter 7 serves as a

gentle introduction to the GTK+ and Glade world, and makes sure the

uses knows how to pick between Windows Forms and the GTK+ / Glade

combination.

After finishing Chapter 7, the user has a very good idea about how to

design a complete graphical user interface using freely available

tools (Windows Forms in Mono, and GTK+ / Glade using GTK# in Mono).

The author now moves on to describe ADO.NET, a heavily used feature of

.NET which is also available through Mono. This chapters enlightens

the reader and explains all aspects of using ADO.NET in applications

to connect and utilize databases. The particular example is geared

towards installing MySQL. Explanation is given both for Linux and

Windows, which also shows that Mono can be used as a .NET alternative

on Windows.

Since XML is constantly referred to as a "hot topic", the author does

not let us down and dedicates a complete chapter to discussing XML and

Mono. If the reader is new to XML, then he / she will be pleased to

find out that an explanation to what XML is and its history is given

at the beginning of Chapter 9: Using XML. The chapter deals with

looking at XML documents and traversing them. The author shows us a

real world example by applying this knowledge to create an RSS feed

class library.

Chapter 10 is for those of us with enthusiasm for networking and

remoting. This chapter, "Introducing Networking and Remoting", starts

by explaining what networks are and their general concepts, then dives

into how we can do networking related programming in .NET. We apply

this knowledge later on and create an RSS feed handler.

Another heavily used feature in .NET is ASP.NET. Chapter 11: Using

ASP.NET, explains what ASP.NET is, how it works internally, and how to

use it. This chapter shows the reader how to set up a web server for

ASP.NET (both the XSP web server and an external web server) and moves

on to show the user how a web service can be written. A lot of readers

will find this chapter very useful as web services seem to be an

increasing and expanding field right now.

Finally in Chapter 12: Using Advanced Mono Techniques, the author

dives into such topics like performance tuning, reflection, and using

threads. Advanced readers will particularly like this chapter as it

handles some of the "harder" more demanding features of .NET.

This book not only serves as a great learning experience that shows

you how things are done in the real world, it also as a general good

reference for C#, .NET, and Mono and several of their features.

Definitely one you should have in your bookshelf right by your work

desk.

I enjoyed reading Mark's book, and I would recommend it to

people that are either getting into .NET / Mono or have some

experience but would like to further it.

I have used .NET before but only in a limited capacity and I was interested in using .NET on Mono. I therefore found the C# primer useful, but obviously not a replacement for a dedicated book. However, the step by step way in which I was introduced to key topics was intuative and easy to understand and its coverage of most .NET topics was comprehensive, especially given the constraints of a single book.

I picked up this book, hoping it would be to the usual APress standard and I wasn't disappointed. I've played with .NET on the Windows platform before but had often wished that this technology would be made available on Open Source.

When Mono was introduced, I wanted to get my hands dirty but not start learning all the facets of .NET from scratch and without having to go through the trauma of understanding the implications, how GTK+ may hook in etc.

I was therefore overjoyed to find that this book covered all of this and more and using a practical book project rather than theoretical examples. It starts gently which I was happy to go through as I picked up a tip here and there. The C# primer chapters were comprehensive and I use them to as a reference guide.

Then we went into chapters that covered ADO.NET, ASP.NET, XML, Networking and much much more. The Author has not only covered the essentials but added tips along the way and these proved very useful in ensuring that I was following a standard path.

At the end of the book, I feel comfortable with .NET and Mono and its all within the familiar surroundings of Open Source. How could it get any better!

I'd therefore recommend this book to anybody wanting to no more and .NET, Mono and more.