MCAD/MCSD Self-Paced Training Kit: Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Microsoft® Visual Basic® .NET and Microsoft Visual C#(TM) .N [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

The content is a cut and paste from the .Net Framework SDK, with very minor changes. For example, compare the following extracts on processing SOAP messages. One from the .Net Framework SDK and the other from the text of the book. They are almost word for word:

(from the .NET Framework SDK)
Process the SOAP messages
In the class derived from SoapExtension, the core piece of implementation is the SoapExtension.ProcessMessage Method. This method is called several times by ASP.NET at each of the stages defined in the SoapMessageStage enumeration. Each time SoapExtension.ProcessMessage Method is called, a SoapMessage, or a class deriving from it, is passed in with information about the SOAP message at that particular stage. If the SOAP extension is running with an XML Web service, then a SoapServerMessage is passed in. If the SOAP extension is running with an XML Web service client, then a SoapClientMessage is passed in.

(from the text of the book - p.449)
Processing SOAP Messages
In the class derived from the SoapExtension class, the implementation of the SoapExtension.ProcessMessage method is the most important stage. ASP.NET calls this method several times at every stage in the SoapMessageStage enumeration. Whenever the SoapExtension.ProcessMessage method is called, a SoapMessage object or a class deriving from it is passed to the method with information about the SOAP message at that particular stage. If the SOAP extension is executing with an XML Web service, a SoapServerMessage is passed as the parameter. If the SOAP extension is running with an XML Web service client, a SoapClientMessage is passed as the parameter.

I don't have a problem with the authors leaning on the content in the SDK. After all, Microsoft own the copyright and they are entitled to do so. However, there is not much value add. At least the code samples in the SDK work. You can see how by trimming down the original code samples from the SDK into the smaller code snippits in this book the Authors turned functioning bits of code into ones with syntax errors. (such as the snippits on p.448 and 450).

The .Net Framework SDK is a free download from Microsoft. This book costs $170 Australian. It is poor value.

On the positive side it does present a good structure for preparing for the exam.

For explanation of the more difficult concepts I just can't go past the "Visual Basic.Net Core Reference" from Balena and MSPress. Every time I have got a question it has got the answer.

The book covers all objectives for the exam, although skimps on details. I learnt more from the labs at the end of the chapters than from the text. The depth of material will perhaps suffice for the exam but will fall short if you try to develop real world applications using this material. This book will not serve as a reference for you after the exam.

It starts off with an overview of .NET Framework, which isn't quite deep but gives a good introduction. The discussion of Windows Services comes next and is quite complete. The book then talks about Serviced Components and .NET Remoting Objects. Both of these sections are not that clear and require supplemental reading. ADO.NET is discussed well, but the discussion about manipulating XML data is again weak. The book ends with 3 chapters on XML Web services which are well written.

The practice test accompanying the book is nothing like the real test, so if you like to take practice tests, you should look elsewhere.

All in all, with all it's peculiarities, I found that it works for the purposes of the exam.

And there is plenty of poor coverage. The main fallback is that although the book covers most requirements it does not always go in depth. I had to pick up another book for a better idea on COM+. I think ADO.NET was best covered in the guides for Windows and Web Applications. The same applies for Tracing and Debugging. For these topics I found the above-mentioned literature and the MSDN library more effective.

Some chapters provide only a summary of the topic but that seemed to be enough for my exam. For example, XML schema is a huge topic but this book only gives a definition of it, an example and how to validate an XML document against its schema. And on my exam nothing more was expected. The same goes for the chapter on Deployment and Installation.

I liked the chapters on Remoting, XSLT and the Advanced Web Services Programming. The topics themselves are interesting and I felt this book covered them quite well. I liked that the book was full of notes, summaries and chapter reviews. I went through them one hour before the exam.

The lab for chapter 5 on ADO.NET was cool. You're dealing with a database, you have to deploy two COM+ components, write a remotable object and configure all this via a windows service. Of course, my lab did not work by following the steps in the book. But once I understood the project, I studied all the concepts by themselves and then worked hard to get them to work together. You should practice such combinations! For e.g. calling one web service from another, writing SOAP extensions and using an XSD to validate the messages or trace them to the event log, etc.

Most other labs were satisfactory. I got more disappointed the more code the labs asked me to copy and paste and the less they explained what the code does and how it is written. I had to break down such code by myself.

Unlike the Web Applications guide, the sample tests in this book can be paused. I was also glad to see not only radio button questions but also checkbox ones too, just like in the real exam. Most questions do reinforce the lessons and labs; some however were just too simple and should have been combined with others or omitted altogether. The question that asks the URL to generate the WSDL for a web service is an example.

I took the sample exam without pausing and I failed miserably. Then I reviewed and practiced on the topics and tried again. I also took the exam with the book in my hand and paused after every question and researched the topic to find the answer. Finally, by the fifth time I passed the exam every time.