Rating: 
Summary: Wow...
Review: The book is worth Don's description of the Unified Type System alone. Understanding how arrays of objects work and the definitive difference between jagged arrays and multi-dimensional arrays is just great. I've been working with the CLR and .NET since the PDC Preview and he showed me a ton of stuff I never figured out. His description of stack and message based method invocation is priceless as well. Nothing bad to say at all about the book.
Rating:
Summary: A dry subject made interesting
Review: There are like a zillion CLR books out there and overall, it's not the type of subject that normally keeps you glued to it. When I got Jeffrey Richther's Microsoft .NET Framework book, I was convinced no one was going to outdo him. Well, it's a close call, but I think they are both Superb books by excellent authors. I've purchased Don's stuff before and really liked it. This book lived up to its expectations.I think his ability to communicate some of the more obscure areas of the CLR in a very clear matter is what makes this book shine. This book can be understood by anyone because of the writer's gift for writing...but that's not to say it's a novice's book. Wherever you are in the .NET learning curve, there's something for you in this book. If you really want to learn the CLR, this is a great place to start.
Rating:
Summary: A dry subject made interesting
Review: There are like a zillion CLR books out there and overall, it's not the type of subject that normally keeps you glued to it. When I got Jeffrey Richther's Microsoft .NET Framework book, I was convinced no one was going to outdo him. Well, it's a close call, but I think they are both Superb books by excellent authors. I've purchased Don's stuff before and really liked it. This book lived up to its expectations. I think his ability to communicate some of the more obscure areas of the CLR in a very clear matter is what makes this book shine. This book can be understood by anyone because of the writer's gift for writing...but that's not to say it's a novice's book. Wherever you are in the .NET learning curve, there's something for you in this book. If you really want to learn the CLR, this is a great place to start.
Rating:
Summary: You can't find this stuff anywhere else
Review: This book is a must read if you want to truly master the CLR. Don is the man!
Rating: 
Summary: Uncovers the little quirks and secrets of the CLR
Review: This book is worth reading if you keep in mind that its main purpose is to uncover the little quirks and secrets of the CLR. As the author states, it isn't intended to be a tutorial and shouldn't be your first choice if you are new to .NET programming (I'd recommend the excellent Applied .NET Framework Programming by Jeffrey Richter as a good starter book). However, reading Essential .NET could potentially save you lots of time sifting through the MSDN documentation to find out why your program is not behaving exactly the way you think it should (you know, those little, tiny, nasty bugs that prove to be the hardest to find). As with any book that tries to cover such an extensive ground as the .NET CLR is, there are tradeoffs in the depth and extent with which the author describes each subject. In this case, Box chose to highlight the details of the inner workings of the CLR that we, as programmers, must have present to make efficient and appropriate use of the runtime facilities. Chapters one through five deal with basic concepts that, in my opinion, are best left to an introductory book and are not worth more than skimming through them, although you could always find a golden needle hidden in the haystack. However, on chapters six and after, the book really takes off and you'll probably find new things to learn page after page. Although the crucial details are clearly exposed, this book is by no means exhaustive, I believe it can be considered more as a base from where you can start researching further about the subject of your interest. For example chapter seven, "Advanced Methods", deals with stack/message transitions, proxies, sinks and contexts. All these concepts are very well covered but I didn't get the eureka! feeling until I read Ingo Rammer's Advanced .NET Remoting and could see those concepts in action and realize their importance. All in all, a book that deserves a slot in your .NET library (a slot somewhere in between a pair of good tutorials and the in-detail books about the areas of the framework that draw your interest). I would consider it a good investment of your time and money and I also see myself coming back to it (specially back to chapter 6-10) as a refresher. -- Review by Julio G.
Rating:
Summary: A good "Don Box book"
Review: This book is written by a professional architect for professional developers but not immediately for primers. The content is clear, precise and describes in depth all important technical aspects of the CLR. I am waiting the volume 2 - XML Web Services.
Rating:
Summary: A clear exposition on contexts and ContextBoundObject
Review: This is an excellent book. Richter's "Applied .NET Framework Programing" covers the CLR from the programmers point of view. Lidin's "Inside Microsoft .NET IL Assembler" is a detailed guide to IL, ilasm and the managed PE file format. Don Box's excellent "Essential .NET Volume 1" bridges the gap-- leveraging your knowledge of the CLS to present interesting internal, runtime aspects of the CLR. Some reviewers have complained that this is "yet another" introduction to .NET. The first couple of chapters do rehash the metadata structure (that is, assemblies, modules and members). These may prove tedious if you are already familiar with them, however they are probably too terse to serve as a useful introduction. However the latter two thirds of the book are excellent. I particularly enjoyed the precise, informative discussion of contexts, MarshalByRefObject, ContextBoundObject and method call interception. The book occasionally delves into implementation details of the Microsoft's CLR 1.0. These are extremely interesting and practically useful insights. That said, there are occasionally annoying typographical mistakes in the figures.
Rating:
Summary: Essential .NET: Essential reading, don't program without it
Review: This is hands-down the most valuable material I have read on the CLR or, for that matter, any .NET Framework topic. Period. With Don's legendary clarity and excellent ability to get to the core issues quickly, this book covers a lot of ground, covers it deeply and covers it well. The CLR is a huge topic, and as the title promises, this book deals with those features that are essential to mastering this technology. Frankly, I fail to understand previous reviewers who disparage because they find the book lacks organization or is hard to follow. Like other books of this genre, such as Scott Meyers seminal book Essential C++, and Don's classic Essential COM, this book is not intended for the beginner, and it will probably require more than one reading to get the most out of it. That is by design. It is not a tutorial and it say so. If you have any concerns whether this is the right book for you, read the section "About This Book" in the Preface, page xx, (sample page 17 in Amazon's "Look Inside This Book"). If you have already gotten your feet wet in .NET and want to really understand the core technology that makes it all work, then I whole-heartedly recommend Essential .NET, Volume 1.
Rating:
Summary: This book is written by experts for experts
Review: This is not a tutorial. One would need some familiarity to understand this book. If the goal is to have a deepest understanding in CLR, this is the best book. I was very anxious to get this book. Ever since the time of "Essential COM", I know Don will teach me .NET in great depth. I was not disappointed with the book. I was also surprised to find out that Don has made very effort to make the book readable. I already owned "Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming" by Jeffrey Richter, I was eager to put both books under comparison since both books cover similar subjects. Both books offer a lot of detail and both books are easy to read. However, the coverage in Jeffrey Richter's book benefits a wider audience and the availability of source code from Wintellect web site is a plus. You need to step through the code to get a good understanding of what is "app domain". If your goal is to get the deepest understanding of CLR, then Don's book is a good read after reading Jeffrey's book. The book provides the best insider information of Microsoft. I do wish the source code would be available for download somewhere. -- Reviewed by Li C.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book for Experts
Review: This is not an introductory text, but if you want to know everything about the internals of the CLR, this is the book to read. It contains information on classes that are not even documented at msdn. Specifically, the information on the messaging infrastructure is stuff you won't find anywhere else. And the explanations are clear and easy to follow. A truly wonderful book.
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