Product Description

A new edition of this title is available, ISBN-10: 0321545613 ISBN-13: 9780321545619

"This book is an absolute must-read for all .NET developers. It gives clear do and don't guidance on how to design class libraries for .NET. It also offers insight into the design and creation of .NET that really helps developers understand the reasons why things are the way they are. This information will aid developers designing their own class libraries and will also allow them to take advantage of the .NET class library more effectively."

--Jeffrey Richter, author/trainer/consultant, Wintellect

"Framework Design Guidelines will help you in two important ways. First, any .NET developer will benefit from a greater understanding of the design principles that govern the .NET Base Class Library. Second, a deeper understanding of these principles will help you to create software that integrates well with the .NET environment. Quite frankly, this book should be on every .NET developer's bookshelf."

--Bill Wagner, founder and consultant, SRT Solutions, author of Effective C#

"Not since Brooks' The Mythical Man Month has the major software maker of its time produced a book so full of relevant advice for the modern software developer. This book has a permanent place on my bookshelf and I consult it frequently."

--George Byrkit, senior software engineer, Genomic Solutions

"This book is a must-read for all architects and software developers thinking about frameworks. The book offers insight into some driving factors behind the design of the .NET Framework. It should be considered mandatory reading for anybody tasked with creating application frameworks."

--Peter Winkler, senior software engineer, Balance Technology Inc.

"Frameworks are valuable but notoriously difficult to construct: Your every decision must be geared towards making them easy to be used correctly and difficult to be used incorrectly. This book takes you through a progression of recommendations that will eliminate many of those downstream 'I wish I'd known that earlier' moments. I wish I'd read it earlier."

--Paul Besly, principal technologist, QA

"Filled with information useful to developers and architects of all levels, this book provides practical guidelines and expert background information to get behind the rules. Framework Design Guidelines takes the already published guidelines to a higher level, and it is needed to write applications that integrate well in the .NET area."

--Cristof Falk, software engineer

Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries teaches developers the best practices for designing system frameworks and reusable libraries for use with the Microsoft .NET Framework and WinFX. This book focuses on the design issues that directly affect the programmability of a framework, specifically its publicly accessible APIs.

This book can improve the work of any .NET developer producing code that other developers will use. An added benefit is a collection of annotations to the guidelines by various members of the Microsoft .NET Framework and WinFX teams, which provide a lively discussion of the motives behind the guidelines, along with examples of good reasons for breaking the guidelines.

Microsoft architects Krzysztof Cwalina and Brad Abrams offer guidelines for framework design from the top down. From their long experience and deep insight, you will learn

• The general philosophy of framework design
• Principles and guidelines that are fundamental to overall framework design
• Naming guidelines for the various parts of a framework, such as namespaces, types, and members
• Guidelines for the design of types and members of types
• Issues and guidelines that are important to ensure appropriate extensibilityin your framework
• Guidelines for working with exceptions, the preferred error reporting mechanism in the .NET Framework and WinFX
• Guidelines for extending and using types that commonly appear in frameworks
• Guidelines for and examples of common framework design patterns

Guidelines in this book come in four major forms: Do, Consider, Avoid, and Do not. In general, a Do guideline should almost always be followed, a Consider guideline should generally be followed, an Avoid guideline indicates that something is generally not a good idea, and a Do not guideline indicates something you should almost never do. Every guideline includes a discussion of its applicability, and most guidelines include a code example.

A companion DVD includes the Designing .NET Class Libraries video series, instructional presentations by the authors on design guidelines for developing classes and components that extend the .NET Framework. A sample API specification and other useful resources are also included.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #228039 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

From the Back Cover

"This book is an absolute must-read for all .NET developers. It gives clear do and don't guidance on how to design class libraries for .NET. It also offers insight into the design and creation of .NET that really helps developers understand the reasons why things are the way they are. This information will aid developers designing their own class libraries and will also allow them to take advantage of the .NET class library more effectively."

--Jeffrey Richter, author/trainer/consultant, Wintellect

"Framework Design Guidelines will help you in two important ways. First, any .NET developer will benefit from a greater understanding of the design principles that govern the .NET Base Class Library. Second, a deeper understanding of these principles will help you to create software that integrates well with the .NET environment. Quite frankly, this book should be on every .NET developer's bookshelf."

--Bill Wagner, founder and consultant, SRT Solutions, author of Effective C#

"Not since Brooks' The Mythical Man Month has the major software maker of its time produced a book so full of relevant advice for the modern software developer. This book has a permanent place on my bookshelf and I consult it frequently."

--George Byrkit, senior software engineer, Genomic Solutions

"This book is a must-read for all architects and software developers thinking about frameworks. The book offers insight into some driving factors behind the design of the .NET Framework. It should be considered mandatory reading for anybody tasked with creating application frameworks."

--Peter Winkler, senior software engineer, Balance Technology Inc.

"Frameworks are valuable but notoriously difficult to construct: Your every decision must be geared towards making them easy to be used correctly and difficult to be used incorrectly. This book takes you through a progression of recommendations that will eliminate many of those downstream 'I wish I'd known that earlier' moments. I wish I'd read it earlier."

--Paul Besly, principal technologist, QA

"Filled with information useful to developers and architects of all levels, this book provides practical guidelines and expert background information to get behind the rules. Framework Design Guidelines takes the already published guidelines to a higher level, and it is needed to write applications that integrate well in the .NET area."

--Cristof Falk, software engineer

Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries teaches developers the best practices for designing system frameworks and reusable libraries for use with the Microsoft .NET Framework and WinFX. This book focuses on the design issues that directly affect the programmability of a framework, specifically its publicly accessible APIs.

This book can improve the work of any .NET developer producing code that other developers will use. An added benefit is a collection of annotations to the guidelines by various members of the Microsoft .NET Framework and WinFX teams, which provide a lively discussion of the motives behind the guidelines, along with examples of good reasons for breaking the guidelines.

Microsoft architects Krzysztof Cwalina and Brad Abrams offer guidelines for framework design from the top down. From their long experience and deep insight, you will learn

• The general philosophy of framework design
• Principles and guidelines that are fundamental to overall framework design
• Naming guidelines for the various parts of a framework, such as namespaces, types, and members
• Guidelines for the design of types and members of types
• Issues and guidelines that are important to ensure appropriate extensibilityin your framework
• Guidelines for working with exceptions, the preferred error reporting mechanism in the .NET Framework and WinFX
• Guidelines for extending and using types that commonly appear in frameworks
• Guidelines for and examples of common framework design patterns

Guidelines in this book come in four major forms: Do, Consider, Avoid, and Do not. In general, a Do guideline should almost always be followed, a Consider guideline should generally be followed, an Avoid guideline indicates that something is generally not a good idea, and a Do not guideline indicates something you should almost never do. Every guideline includes a discussion of its applicability, and most guidelines include a code example.

A companion DVD includes the Designing .NET Class Libraries video series, instructional presentations by the authors on design guidelines for developing classes and components that extend the .NET Framework. A sample API specification and other useful resources are also included.

About the Author

Krzysztof Cwalina is a Program Manager on the Common Language Runtime team at Microsoft Corporation. He began his career at Microsoft designing APIs for the first release of the .NET Framework. He has been responsible for several namespaces in the Framework, including System.Collections, System.Diagnostics, System.Messaging, and others. He was also one of the original members of the FxCop team. Currently, he is leading a companywide effort to develop, promote, and apply the design guidelines to the .NET Framework and WinFX. Krzysztof graduated with a B.S. and an M.S. in computer science from the University of Iowa.

Brad Abrams was a founding member of both the Common Language Runtime and .NET Framework teams at Microsoft, where he is currently a Lead Program Manager. Brad has been involved with WinFX and Windows Vista efforts from the beginning. His primary role is to ensure consistency and developer productivity of the .NET Framework through Vista and beyond. His popular blog can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/BradA/.

Customer Reviews

Quite illuminating as to naming and design standards
At least, the Microsoft way. The book is certainly derived from an internal document, as the authors acknowledge. That said, the point in this book is to clearly set plenty of guidelines in order to achieve an standard approach to naming in Apis, classes, frameworks and such. Very useful in most software shops, even of the modest kind. Harmonisation and standards make it much easier to maintain stuff, to incorporate new hires and to soften the curve for them, to make coding clearer and more intuitive when you program against your own layers and reusable libraries. A good book for all of us who, being microsofties, design classes, dlls and other stuff for others to build upon.

Developing an SDK? Give a copy to all your team!
This book explains aspects of API Usability in a consise and developer friendly way. It uses the .NET Framework as an example of how APIs should be designed in order to be successful. It includes anecdotes from the .NET development team on why some approaches worked well and why other approaches caused problems and had to be reworked in later versions.

This book serves as an introduction to API usability that will help turn woolly or amorphous collection of APIs into an SDK that your customers can learn easily, and can be productive with from beginner thru expert.

Every development team that writes an SDK targeted for .NET developers needs this book. Any developer who has ever written an API or SDK that another developer found difficult to use or understand needs this book. Any developer that wants to spend less time telling his customers how to use his APIs needs this book. Any developer who has an interest in User Interface usability but does not know about API usability needs this book.

Expert Advice
This book is written by experts so you know that what your reading has been thought through fully and is (as far as possible) based on evidence. Its full of invaluable advice on how to design class libraries for .NET and although a lot of the advice given in the book applies just as well to classes you develop for use within your company.

I found it very easy to read and learned a lot that I am able to apply when working on class libraries within the company I work in.

I just wish Microsoft themselves would follow these rules more closely!