I purchased this book "used" - received it in the mail today. I payed a fraction of the published price - however, I have to say, I am having a huge reaction of repulsion to this book - regardless of the price.

I have a few years of .Net Coding, and decades of programming experience. I know enough to realize that there are some really beginning things in this book, and some concepts that are just a bit past a beginner. I find the writing style irratic and irritating.

It could be that part of the problem is that the publisher did not put the authors paragraphs through an Editorial team and make the author keep his style clear and simple. (A technical reviewer would not do that) The Editorial team would make sure that the English states a theme and stays on topic to a point of clarity that really seems to be missing in what I have seen so far. If there was an Editorial team, they missed the boat - a book should never have gone to print this bad.

Only one other technical book has ever created such a strong repulsion before and that was over 10 years ago. That older book sounded like they were too full of themselves - I cannot point to that in this - at least so far it just seems to be extremely irratic in its presentation to the point that I find it terribly annoying.

I am not even sure that the hoped for "Pattern's"(e.g Gang of Four) will be fully developed in what I have seen so far. My reaction to the writing was enough to want to post a review to warn others. The book so far is really a dissapointment.

I am having a hard time trying to read this for any value due to my reaction to the writing style. Clarity and simplicity of style are not in what I have seen so far. Simply awful.

I consider myself an intermediate. None of the concepts I've read in this book so far are foreign but I'm sick and tired of books like this being thrown together. I haven't gotten through the book yet but I will not give this or any other book a better rating until there is at least documentation of how to source is thrown together. Having said that, could I sit here and figure everything out. Sure I could but that's not the point. I bought the book to learn and get a different perspective. For me, looking and stepping through examples is how I learn. The author admits the source is horribly organized. What just baffles me is here's the text in the changelog.txt:



"Initial release where source code is functional, but not organized. To get

an understanding of what the source code is doing look at the book:

Foundations of Object Oriented Programming using .NET 2.0 Patterns published

by Apress. In the future I will work on making the source code more

organized. It also depends on the demands of the readers and clients."



With VS 2005 there simply is no excuse for any author not to be able to package a fully functioning solution or solutions to where the user extracts it and it builds. Well there is one excuse and it's laziness.



The txt file above only confirms whoever put this together is lazy. come on it's not organized great but if people complain maybe we'll do better. Pitiful.



Having said that the content of the book could be good but for me I paid the fee for the book to read and learn through examples not figure out somebody elses mess.



For those who can comprehend code without ever wanting or needing to put it in the IDE and step through, look at variable states etc, then this probably won't apply to you.



I for one demand apress or this author at least extend the courtesy to their customers to at least post documentation as to how to set up the code to where it will at least compile without us trying to weave through the authors tangled mess.

I consider myself an intermediate. None of the concepts I've read in this book so far are foreign but I'm sick and tired of books like this being thrown together. I haven't gotten through the book yet but I will not give this or any other book a better rating until there is at least documentation of how to source is thrown together. Having said that, could I sit here and figure everything out. Sure I could but that's not the point. I bought the book to learn and get a different perspective. For me, looking and stepping through examples is how I learn. The author admits the source is horribly organized. What just baffles me is here's the text in the changelog.txt:

"Initial release where source code is functional, but not organized. To get
an understanding of what the source code is doing look at the book:
Foundations of Object Oriented Programming using .NET 2.0 Patterns published
by Apress. In the future I will work on making the source code more
organized. It also depends on the demands of the readers and clients."

With VS 2005 there simply is no excuse for any author not to be able to package a fully functioning solution or solutions to where the user extracts it and it builds. Well there is one excuse and it's laziness.

The txt file above only confirms whoever put this together is lazy. come on it's not organized great but if people complain maybe we'll do better. Pitiful.

Having said that the content of the book could be good but for me I paid the fee for the book to read and learn through examples not figure out somebody elses mess.

For those who can comprehend code without ever wanting or needing to put it in the IDE and step through, look at variable states etc, then this probably won't apply to you.

I for one demand apress or this author at least extend the courtesy to their customers to at least post documentation as to how to set up the code to where it will at least compile without us trying to weave through the authors tangled mess.

I consider myself an intermediate. None of the concepts I've read in this book so far are foreign but I'm sick and tired of books like this being thrown together. I haven't gotten through the book yet but I will not give this or any other book a better rating until there is at least documentation of how to source is thrown together. Having said that, could I sit here and figure everything out. Sure I could but that's not the point. I bought the book to learn and get a different perspective. For me, looking and stepping through examples is how I learn. The author admits the source is horribly organized. What just baffles me is here's the text in the changelog.txt:

"Initial release where source code is functional, but not organized. To get
an understanding of what the source code is doing look at the book:
Foundations of Object Oriented Programming using .NET 2.0 Patterns published
by Apress. In the future I will work on making the source code more
organized. It also depends on the demands of the readers and clients."

With VS 2005 there simply is no excuse for any author not to be able to package a fully functioning solution or solutions to where the user extracts it and it builds. Well there is one excuse and it's laziness.

The txt file above only confirms whoever put this together is lazy. come on it's not organized great but if people complain maybe we'll do better. Pitiful.

Having said that the content of the book could be good but for me I paid the fee for the book to read and learn through examples not figure out somebody elses mess.

For those who can comprehend code without ever wanting or needing to put it in the IDE and step through, look at variable states etc, then this probably won't apply to you.

I for one demand apress or this author at least extend the courtesy to their customers to at least post documentation as to how to set up the code to where it will at least compile without us trying to weave through the authors tangled mess.

I was hoping for more C# tips then just plain OO methodologies. This is simply a book to teach you object oriented programming, and the code they use in their examples is C#. If you are just learning OO and wanted to do it in C# then this book would be fine.

I was hoping for more C# tips then just plain OO methodologies. This is simply a book to teach you object oriented programming, and the code they use in their examples is C#. If you are just learning OO and wanted to do it in C# then this book would be fine.

This book is good, however its code samples are not orgnized. Many of my classmates do not know how get the code run by chapter.
We hope the book author be helpfull on this issue, at least post some guidence.
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I totally disagree with 'E. Makepeace "Ewan"'. But there's always at least one hater in the group, who hates just to hate.

I've been searching for a book like this for a long time; one that is C# flavor that not only defines patterns, but explains how and why to use them. My schooling focused on OOP concepts but never touched on patterns. The author supplies many good examples and explains concepts in an easy to understand manner. Highly recommended...

I am just about thru with ch03. Some very good stuff on Interfaces, generics, factory and bridge patterns. The code examples in the book and those available from Apress hinder rather than help me to understand the very good knowledge the author tries to convey. For me I need to approach this book with emphasis on being very diligent on absorbing detail. At times I need to re-read a chapter to completely understand what he is saying. I think some of that is due to the nature of the information but a bit from my point of view it lacks some necessary editing for continuity. But for me its worth the effort although I don't like to have to work so hard getting the examples to work. I have not been able to compile cleanly any of the code from Apress. Frankly, when I learning new technology I don't want to spend more time trying to figure out how the examples compile than I spend reading the book. Overall it has been worth my effort.

I am just about thru with ch03. Some very good stuff on Interfaces, generics, factory and bridge patterns. The code examples in the book and those available from Apress hinder rather than help me to understand the very good knowledge the author tries to convey. For me I need to approach this book with emphasis on being very diligent on absorbing detail. At times I need to re-read a chapter to completely understand what he is saying. I think some of that is due to the nature of the information but a bit from my point of view it lacks some necessary editing for continuity. But for me its worth the effort although I don't like to have to work so hard getting the examples to work. I have not been able to compile cleanly any of the code from Apress. Frankly, when I learning new technology I don't want to spend more time trying to figure out how the examples compile than I spend reading the book. Overall it has been worth my effort.

This is defnitely an advanced topic, not Beginner/Intermediate level. The chapter on Generics is excellents and there are some good examples on using patterns in C#. The book flows very smoothly, and the author provides excellent concepts on using patterns with .NET 2.0.

If you don't have experience in object-oriented techniques this book may a little much. The chapter on OO while good, may require a re-read to understand topics in the other chapters.

All in all I would recommend this book. The author shows some excellent techniques on the best way to use Gang of Four patterns
with .NET 2.0.

The title of the book begins with "Foundations" and the associated user level is described as "Beginner-Intermediate" but I would suggest that neither is true. The book moves way to fast with the author all the time telling you how simple this is while at the same time providing examples that are poorly explained; at least in the context of a Beginner-Intermediate audience.

The reason I bought this book is that I am familiar with patterns and generics but wanted an authoritative foundation to help me describe to my team how we can apply them using the 2.0 framework.

Where this book succeeds is that it made me realize that I need to do a lot more research before finding the tone necessary to mentor my team on patterns for 2.0.

I think the book would be better classified in the Intermediate-Advanced range or re-written in a tone more suited for the noted user level.

To those of us who started programming back in the dark, dark ages when languages didn't have any 'object orientation' to them but were procedural in nature the new concept of OO is particularly difficult to grasp. So many books start out with a definition of OO something like "an object can be anything ...' Obviously this is BS because that cup of tea sitting on my desk is an object but has little to do with programming. Then these books don't mention objects again for a hundred pages or more.

If we've had to write using an OO language, we tend to copy down the stuff that goes at the beginning and end of the program and then write the programming using an OO language but using a procedural style.

This book is different. He starts out with a chapter on essentials of OO programming. And By Golly, what he says makes sense. What I'm saying is that he has a writing style that appeals to me, makes sense to me, that approaches the problem in a way that I can understand.

This book explains several concepts, OO, Patterns, C#, .NET 2.0 in sufficient detail to get a grasp of what we're trying to do without being so detailed that we get bogged down in a pit so deep that we can't see out. After reading it, I'm ready to move on to learning more of each of these subjects, as well as some others that he touched on.

If you consider Object Oriented Programming as a modern day software religion (which in a warped, geeky sort of way it sort of is) then in one sense Pattern Books are its Bibles (which would make the GOF the Prophets, or Disciples???). If you are pushed to defend OOP to a non believer, to justify its existence, it really all boils down to patterns - reusable code, self documenting classes, robust, maintainable applications, all the benefits of OOP are actually benefits of the Patterns it enables.
Still not all religions are created equal, and neither are the books about Patterns. This one is written by an author with a gift for making the simple complex, and the elegant obtuse. His examples (all in C# and making extensive use of advanced features like Generics) almost all fail to enlighten, while his prose rambles unbearably with constant repetition of mundane asides (and this is not a very long book for such a broad subject matter).
Not content to touch on dozens of patterns he also tries to introduce .NET, Nunit test framework, Log4Net logging package, NHibernate O/R persistence layer (yes really). Predictably the result is one of those high speed tours of a strange city ("and on our left we are passing the Command pattern while if you look to our right we just used the NUnit framework"...)
I could not decide if Christian does not understand his subject matter or is just a poor author in need of a good editor, but either way there are some lovely pattern books available so dont waste your money on this one.

This book is a very good patterns book. The author covers a lot of ground and has a lot of real practical examples.

I would recommend reading it. The author relates patterns to architecture, component based development, data persistence, pluggable architectures, algorithms, code efficiency, and a ton of other great topics. He also relates the topics to real world scenarios, so it is all very practical. He also uses TDD to build tests to show how to test the implementations of the components he builds.

The author also make extensive use of Generics, which lend themselves very well to patterns. He has some great examples of how to use them to modify the tradition GOF patterns to make the more .NET 2.0 savvy.

He also points out when to use interfaces and when it is appropriate to use classes in component development, which is very important to know.

Over all I think the author does a great job of showing how to use patterns in real life OOP.

There are two downsides to the book. One is the style in which it is written. Things are broken down very well and you need to really pay attention to what points the author is making. The other down side it the downloadable code. It is a chaotic mess and it's not usable.