Welcome to the 'Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Application Development Foundation' module.
This book provides extensive "textbook like" coverage of the exam objectives associated with exam 70-536 of the Microsoft certification program. Those objectives cover the basic .NET class libraries and the interaction of a program with the .NET execution environment.
Please give us your feedback on the module so we can improve it (see discussion page).
The preface contains information relevant to the context of the document, authors, wikibooks, etc. You can skip to the Introduction if you are primarily interested in the module content.
The audience for this study guide are software developers professionally interested in the .NET framework. Microsoft states in the Exam (70-536) preparation guide that "Candidates should have at least two to three years of experience developing Web-based, Microsoft Windows-based, or distributed applications by using the .NET Framework 1.0, the .NET Framework 1.1, and the .NET Framework 2.0. Candidates should have a working knowledge of Visual Studio 2005.".
For this study guide, we will just assume that readers know at least one of the .NET languages (VB.NET, C#, etc.), have access to Visual Studio and have some experience working with it.
Please note that the .NET platform is quite extensive and that a basic understanding of computer science is also assumed. For example, we will briefly discuss how object-orientation principles are implemented in the framework (from a developer point of view) but not the principles themselves, where do they come from, what specific problems they address, etc.
Wikibooks has other books both on VB, C# and .NET that are more introductory in nature:
Finally, by "professionally interested" we refer to the fact that this book, along with the other certification study guides, provides an extensive coverage of the framework and demands a significant study time. So anybody that wants to get that kind of coverage and has some time to spare can join in!
This module is far from over! Please do not hesitate to improve it as you see fit.
Just a couple of pointers though if you are a new contributor to wikibooks:
Current information on the exam can be found at MSDN Exam Information
This module is the study guide for the first exam (70-536) for obtaining many Microsoft certifications:
If you contribute to this book, if you wish, please add your name here. The contributors for a specific article can be traced by its history.
Please note that it is not wikibook's policy to have link only pages or pages with very few text. The preferred way is to have continuous textbooks that can be read from start to finish. The first contributions to this module where in the form of separate pages for each third or forth level exam objectives. This gave way to numerous pages that were merged into more consistent global pages. For links only page, this process had the adverse side effect of losing references to contributions made to those pages. For pages with text the change history were moved to the merged page.
Introduction System types and collections Exam objective: Developing applications that use system types and collections. Services, threading and application domains Exam objective: Implementing service processes, threading, and application domains in a .NET Framework application Configuration, diagnostic, management, and installation Exam objective: Embedding configuration, diagnostic, management, and installation features into a .NET Framework application Serialization and input / output Exam objective: Implementing serialization and input/output functionality in a .NET Framework application Security Exam objective: Improving the security of the .NET Framework applications by using the .NET Framework 2.0 security features Interoperability, Reflection, and Mailing Exam objective: Implementing interoperability, reflection, and mailing functionality in a .NET Framework application Globalization, Drawing, and Text manipulation Exam objective: Implementing globalization, drawing, and text manipulation functionality in a .NET Framework application Annexes The annexes are a series of articles on specific subjects that are referenced by the main text but were not integrated in it.
.NET Framework Application Development Foundation Self-Paced Training Kit, Second Edition Tony Northrup Microsoft Press
We reference that book as the "training kit" since it is recommended by Microsoft as a training aid for the 70-536 exam (for example see MCPD).
If you use the training kit you might want to look here for a list of known corrections. Other potential corrections are listed in this wikibook.
Visual C#: The language - 2005 Edition Donis Marchall Microsoft Press
Also recommended as a training aid for the 70-536 exam (for example see MCPD)
If you want to go deeper into the definition of the common language infrastructure you can download the official specification
This is not required for the exam but we will use the specification a couple of times to clarify ambiguities in the MSDN documentation or other reference manuals.