Review: Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 Quickstart Cookbook (2013)

• June 30, 2013
• James Skemp
• review

The .NET Framework is just too big

.NET 4.5 came out a short while ago, but the amount I've been able to do with it has been fairly limited. So when I was asked if I wanted a review copy of Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 Quickstart Cookbook I went ahead and took the opportunity to do so, to see what I could look forward to.

Ultimately, I had a hard time with this. It's my first Packt quickstart cookbook, but I was expecting a little bit of code going over new .NET 4.5 features. This book certainly has that, but with how large the .NET Framework is, I felt like what I learned was only the tip of the iceberg.

In fact the author mentions that in a couple chapters, but while links to additional resources would have been help to have included, there are none, until the appendices.

I think I would have much rather preferred having something that focused on a small subset of the new features, then try to bounce around between Windows 8 (using XAML, not HTML), WF, ASP.NET Web API, and Entity Framework. How about a single application that is for Windows 8 that features new 4.5 functionality, since the author is clearly interested in XAML.

The very informal writing styling, which I kept tripping over, would also have worked much better there, than here were I was hoping for something a bit more ... formal, especially since this a book, and not a blog. I also was very interested in learning more about WF, but despite reading a quickstart book that talks about it, I know how to create a workflow, but I don't know why I'd want to. What problem does this solve?

(The first chapter on Windows 8 is actually pretty good, which made it fairly easy to tell that he was much more interested in some topics than others.)

So sadly I have to give Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 Quickstart Cookbook 3 of 5 stars. The book isn't bad, but could have done better with a sharper focus. If the specific topics this book goes over is of interest to you, and you have some previous understanding of them, then this might be worth your benefit. Otherwise, since it's a quickstart, you may be more interested in looking at something that digs in deeper.

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