Customer Reviews:
 Review by Allistair Lomax, Microsoft Certified Trainer and Developer February 23, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
A book that is designed to prepare anyone for this kind of certification cannot be easy to produce. So overall, I think that the MS Press have done a fairly decent job of getting the basic material accross, so on balance, I've opted to give this book 4 stars.
As other reviewers have mentioned there are a number of quality control issues with this book. One of the most annoying issues, for me, was the far too often 'wrong screenshot for the diagram' scenario. It's unhelpful when you are struggling to learn a concept, to look at a diagram that bears no relationship to what is being described in the text. That could have been avoided with better editing. My other gripe is that there are a number of technical errors in the text. Classes and members are incorrectly named in the text, which just potentially adds confusion to those new to the material.
The chapters covering Remoting are very good, and form an excellent introduction to the topic. The labs are informative and actually do something. The section on Web Services is equally fine, and form a good introduction to the subject area. The labs in the initial chapters on Web Services are a little bit too basic and need more detail. I was somewhat dissappointed with the chapters covering Web Services Extensions (WSE). I personally feel that the explanations of the basics of WSE could have been made a bit more clearly. I think for future editions, this is something that will need improvement.
To be fair though, one of the good aspects of this book are the Case Scenarios and Practises at the end of each chapter, and the authors do make it clear that these are necessary to gain a fuller grasp of the technologies. One of my other gripes about the WSE chapters is that a few of the labs don't actually run to show anything on completion, which I personally feel should happen so that a learner can see a task completed to reinforce learning.
The chapter on COM+ is very brief and gives an overall introduction to the topic. Further reading will be required for this subject for a fuller grasp of the technology. The chapter on Message Queueing is also somewhat lacking in detail, but is sufficient to prepare you for the exam.
My last comment is about the suitability of the book as a preparation for Exam 70-529, which is the prime reason that most people will consider buying this book. I would say if you read the text and do the labs at the end of each chapter, then that will prepare you for about 75% of the exam material. I very strongly recommend that anyone using this book as a preparation, ensure that they work through the case scenarios and do the practise projects at the end of each chapter, particularly the WSE 3.0 chapters.
In summary, I would say this book is definitely a 'must-have' as an exam preparation resource. The practise tests that come with the book are very helpful in consolidating your knowlege. I'm quite happy to recommend it to anyone preparing for MCTS or MCPD certification.
Not bad for an exam book February 15, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As anyone who has ever used some books geared towards passing a cert exam knows, most of these books are not useful after the exam has been passed (which was the goal in the first place anyway). However, I find this book to be a valuable sort of reference for the matter at hand. While it won't go too far in the way of very complicated issues, or bugs, or design /interoperability issues, at least it will be good as a general or background reference on how MS contemplates the discipline distributed application development.
It can sit on your table as an useful refresher of, for example, WSE settings and configuration options, .NET web services specific attributes and such. And, as should be, it covers all the areas required for the exam.
Probably not a book for a very seasoned high-flying architect, but a useful one for those of us seeking both the cert and a good knowledge level on which to build and progress.
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