The .NET Framework - A Good Read?

Normally, a computer reference book is about as fascinating as watching paint dry. You look up only what you need to know and get back to the keyboard. However, I’ve found myself lingering over Brad Abrams and Tamara Abrams’s “.NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference, Volume 2” that arrived by courier this morning.
Rather than take on the huge .NET Framework, the book looks at important and widely-used types. I’m not sure how I missed Volume 1, but Volume 2 goes into networking, reflection and XML.
What makes it fun is having annotations from people who were/are on the inside during the development of .NET. For example, the section on WebRequest includes a short discussion by Microsoft’s Lance Olson about the long arguments on whether to have a separate class for request and reply. In the WebProxy discussion, standards expert Joel Marcey notes that camelCasing on its constructor parameters isn’t consistent with the ECMA standard, “We missed the boat on some of these.” Sometimes the comments point to areas that are fixed/improved in .NET 2.0.
As a person who learns more from sample code than from specifications, I’ll probably spend time checking the listings that accompany each class. I’ll keep the searchable CD in the laptop bag because it has tons of samples.
Anyway, this is just a brief report on what looks like a very worthwhile book.

Ken

Microsoft MVP [ASP.NET]