Resources

Recommended books

I recommend the following books, either because I personally like them, or because I think they are well regarded by other .NET developers. (Note that I get a commission from Amazon if you buy a book after following one of these links.)

• Pro C# 2005 and the .NET 2.0 Platform, 3nd Edition - Andrew Troelsen
  Regarded by many as the best all round C#/.NET book. Wide coverage including Windows Forms, COM interop, ADO.NET, ASP.NET etc.
• CLR via C# is the .NET 2.0 version of Jeffrey Richter's acclaimed Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming book.
  Despite the 'applied' in the original title, these books are mostly about how the .NET Framework works 'under the hood'. Examples are in C#.
• Essential .NET Volume 1, The Common Language Runtime - Don Box
  A superb book, which I recommend to anyone who already has some .NET development experience, and wants to get a deeper understanding of CLR fundamentals. It's clear that Box has deeply researched the topics and then carefully constructed a coherent story around his findings. It's rare to find such craft in a.NET text.
• Windows Forms 2.0 Programming (2nd Edition) - Chris Sells & Mike Weinhardt
  Anything Sells writes is usually worth reading.
• .NET and COM - The Complete Interoperability Guide - Adam Nathan
  Don't be put off by the size - this book is very easy to digest thanks to the superb writing style. The bible of .NET/COM interop.
• Advanced .NET Remoting, Second Edition - Ingo Rammer & Mario Szpuszta
  Widely recommended.
• Pro ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005 - Matthew MacDonald and Mario Szpuszta.
  Well written and comprehensive coverage of ASP.NET. Ideal for those who already have some web development experience - complete beginners may be better off with a more introductory text.
• Pro ADO.NET 2.0 - Sahil Malik.
  Good ADO.NET text, though I found the best practices chapter a little disappointing, and the duplication of code samples (VB.NET & C# versions) is a waste of space.

Web sites

• The Microsoft .NET homepage is at http://www.microsoft.com/net/. Microsoft also host GOTDOTNET.
• Chris Sells has a great set of .NET links.
• microsoft.public.dotnet.* newsgroups
• Syncfusion Winforms FAQ.
• Ingo Rammer's .NET Remoting FAQ.
• DevX host the .NET Zone.
• http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_dotnet.html is a superb set of links to .NET resources.
• My C# FAQ for C++ Programmers.

Blogs

The following Weblogs ('blogs') have regular .NET content:

• The .NET Guy (Brad Wilson)
• Chris Sells
• Charles Cook: Developer of XML-RPC.NET.
• Gwyn Cole: Co-author of Developing WMI solutions.
• Ian Griffiths
• Chris Brumme
• Brad Abrams
• Don Box
• John Lam
• Ingo Rammer: Author of Advanced .NET remoting.
• Drew Marsh
• Simon Fell: Developer of PocketSOAP.

Free tools

• Lutz Roeder's Reflector
• Adam Nathan's clrspy
• Allocation Profiler
• FXCop
• NUnit
• Managed stack explorer