Expert C# 2005 Business Objects, Apress
Microsoft .NET Framework, ASP.NET, Visual C# (CSharp, C Sharp, C-Sharp) Developer Training, Visual Studio
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C# Online.NET Book Review
In my Java technology days, I remember reading a book which—finally—got through to me—opening up the world of object-oriented programming for me. That book explained how to build a Struts-like framework.
Expert C# 2005 Business Objects has the same potential to broaden your programming horizons while imparting deep insights into object-oriented design and programming (OOD/OOP). This book is about architecting, designing, and developing object-oriented applications using .NET 2.0. It uses the author's framework—called CSLA.NET—as the pedagogical vehicle. Books like this are old hat to Java developers; but, they are still rather rare in C# circles.
This book is an outgrowth of earlier books by the same author on the same subject. A major difference between the current book and earlier editions is that the earlier works tend to take you step-by-step through development of the CSLA framework. The earlier versions were more tutorial in nature. The current book takes a more high-level view of the proceedings; although, you can download the CSLA source code from the Web.
The book teaches best practices for building scalable, object-oriented .NET systems. It begins with a discussion of the issues and inevitable trade-offs involved. Next, it introduces the advanced .NET technologies which will be needed. Then, it works through the development of a practical application development framework. The book finishes by developing sample business objects using the framework. Deployment is covered for three types of application: ASP.NET Web application, Web Services, Windows Forms application.
I will not debate the strengths and weakness of the CSLA framework here; because, they are largely irrelevant to the purposes of the book unless you intend to actually use the CSLA—itself—for development. I will say that Rocky has been updating and refining the framework for many years and that it has a large user community.
I would call your attention to the word Expert in the title. This is not a book for beginners either with .NET, C#, or object-oriented programming. It can be tough going at times for intermediate level developers; but, the effort is worthwhile.
All the source code examples in this book are in the C# language.
Bottom line
Expert C# 2005 Business Objects contains deep insights into object-oriented architecture and framework design.
Other books in this series
Apress Expert Series:
- Expert C# 2005 Business Objects, Apress
- Expert Service-Oriented Architecture in C#, Apress
- Expert Service-Oriented Architecture in C#, 2nd Ed., Apress
Publisher's description
Rockford Lhotka started writing his Business Objects books in 1996, and over the years, he’s become one of the world’s foremost authorities on building distributed object-oriented systems. His industry-standard VB .NET Business Objects book not only addresses changes in .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005, but also reflects substantial enhancements and improvements to the CSLA .NET Framework and how it can be used to create enterprise-level .NET applications.
Expert C# Business Objects is for developers who want to see Lhotka’s ideas applied in the C# idiom. The book takes you from an opening discussion of logical architectures to detailed n-tier deployment options using the CSLA .NET Framework.
The depth of Rockford’s thinking now influences developers across language boundaries. With this book, you can learn directly from the expert whose framework has become universally accepted and respected.
About the author(s)
Rockford Lhotka is the author of numerous books, including Expert One-on-One Visual Basic .NET and Expert C# Business Objects. He is a Microsoft Software Legend, Regional Director, MVP, and INETA speaker. Rockford speaks at many conferences and user groups around the world and is a columnist for MSDN Online. Rockford is the principal technology evangelist for Magenic Technologies, one of the nation's premiere Microsoft Gold Certified Partners dedicated to solving today's most challenging business problems using 100% Microsoft tools and technology.
From the author's Web site
Rockford Lhotka’s CSLA .NET framework is an application development framework that reduces the cost of building and maintaining applications.
The framework enables the use of object-oriented design as the basis for creating powerful applications. Business objects based on the framework support many advanced features to simplify the creation of Windows Forms, Web Forms and Web Services interfaces.
CSLA .NET is designed to allow great flexibility in object persistence, so business objects can use virtually any data sources available. The framework is designed to enable single tier and n-tier models through the concept of mobile objects. This provides the flexibility to optimize performance, scalability, security and fault tolerance with no changes to code in the UI or business objects.
What is CSLA .NET?
There are many frameworks in the world. Most of them focus on the common issues of getting data into and out of the database or creating a flexible UI. What is typically missing is a focus on managing or implementing business logic. This puzzles me, because business logic is the centerpiece of a business application.
Helping to manage and implement this business logic is the purpose of my CSLA .NET framework and is the focus of my Expert VB 2005 and C# 2005 Business Objects books.
CSLA .NET enables you to create an object-oriented business layer that abstracts and encapsulates your business logic and data. The framework automatically supports data binding for both Windows Forms and Web Forms, and provides assistance for implementing standard validation and authorization logic within your objects.
CSLA .NET 2.0 also includes a technology-neutral client/server abstraction, allowing you to build your application and then decide at deployment whether to use 2-tier or 3-tier client/server. If you opt for 3-tier deployment, you can choose between .NET Remoting, Web Services or Enterprise Services as a network protocol, with support for WCF in beta. The key point here is that you can switch between 2-tier and any of these 3-tier networking options without changing your UI, business logic or data access code; all that changes is a configuration file (and of course deployment to both client and server).
Finally, CSLA .NET provides a clearly defined location in your architecture where you get data from or put data into the database. This is not the focus of CSLA .NET, and so the framework’s goal is to put you in charge. To give you optimum flexibility in how that data is managed and to enable decoupling of the data access from the business object and user interface or presentation layers.
In short, CSLA .NET is a framework for building a robust, maintainable business layer. Optimized for flexibility of both user presentation and data access, and designed to minimize the impact of future technology changes; including from WCF and WPF in the .NET 3.0 Framework.
