Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Brief Overview of .Net for VB or Java programmers
Review: This book is a very good BRIEF and HIGH LEVEL overview of .Net. And a pleasure to read.
It is mostly tailored to pre-.Net VB programmers, but may also be useful for Java programmers interested in this technology.
The author assumes that his readers do have some experience, primarily with VB.
It is not a tutorial, neither a how-to book, so people with little or no prior experience with programming will not benefit from it.
I particularly liked authors approach to start every chapter with describing a problem that programmers faced in pre-.Net world, and then explain how .Net attempts to solve this problem. This really puts all featurs covered by the book into right context and helps understand .Net as a solution architecture built on top of prior technologies, and not as a stand-alone piece of software wizardry.
Highly recommend this book to managers that have previous coding experience.
Do NOT recommend it for managers without it, as the book heavinly relies on code examples.
Rating:
Summary: Good for beginners
Review: This is an excellent book if you are a completely ignorant as far as .NET is concerned but have a good understanding of general programming concepts. Would be a good read for technically literate management. However if you intend to become fully proficient you will probably need another book in addition to this one.
Rating: 
Summary: VERY BRIEF introduction to .NET
Review: This is not the book you want in order to learn .NET. It has barely any core technique I want inside.If you just want to have VERY brief introduction to .NET, this book might be OK, otherwise, it does not have much inside.
Rating: 
Summary: Short and to the point
Review: This is one of the shortest programming books I have ever read. It is approximately 198 pages. Unfortunately, the book glosses over much of the material. You may not learn much, but you will learn it quickly. It is a good introduction to .NET and will definitely help you understand the longer asp.net and VB.net books you will read. I give it three stars for the material and five for the length. Overall, it accomplishes what it promises (an introduction). I give it four stars.
Rating:
Summary: Good intro
Review: This review is based on the first edition. Good intro to .NET. I read through the last sentence but did skip some unfamiliar explanations on COM and previous programming methodologies. Great explanation of Web Service, which another book on C# totally failed to. The humor gets wordy a lot, so beware - however, some analogies are excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Good intro
Review: This review is based on the first edition. Good intro to .NET. I read through the last sentence but did skip some unfamiliar explanations on COM and previous programming methodologies. Great explanation of Web Service, which another book on C# totally failed to. The humor gets wordy a lot, so beware - however, some analogies are excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Clear and concise 5000 foot level view of .net
Review: What David Platt offers is in too-short supply in the world of computer books: a clear concise perspective on new technology. I'd highly recommend this book for anyone who wants a 5000 foot level overview of .NET. Please note this is not a "how to" for programmers, or a reference manual. Instead, if you're a VB programmer or Java guru who want's a quick well-written snapshot of what Microsoft is doing as an alternative to java, I'd start here!
Rating:
Summary: Meets its objectives with David's humor intact
Review: When I review a book like this, I have to look at the context and the audience that its aimed for, not the fact that I have been using .NET for a year. This book is in the same style as David's excellent COM+ Intro book which is in the same style as David Chappel's landmark ActiveX/COM book. These are all aimed at the 10,000 foot level with little code. Don't let that scare you though. The coverage of most parts of .NET (except for ADO+) is very thorugh and is better than the previous Wrox press book. I would rather have seen the examples in C# than VB.NET but that is a minor quibble. And of course, we still have David's humor which makes this a pleasent read.
| 
