If you are planning on writing a small scale application in C#, then you won't go far wrong with this. It covers everything from the initial meeting with the client to the packaging of the final application using a deployment tool.

The design process and ideas behind it were very clear. It has been a long time since I last came across a book that paid such attention to the processes that precede writing the first line of code.

Before a line of code is written, it's chapter 6.

That's when the book falls over - the code.

It's not so much "here's the application code that I used" more "here's some of the application code I used". Unfortunately that problem really does detract from the book as it means that you cannot compile the application so the results can be seen.

A second problem with the "some of the code" approach is that if it had been "all of the code" then the book would have served a dual purpose as it could have also been one of the finest Visual .NET how to books around; the book pays closer attention to the setting up of the forms, setting out of the database (which is an MSDE one, though it is outlined as an SQL one) and other aspects of using the Visual development environment.

The book would have benefited from having a CD of the source code and other components - if for nothing else than for the reader to be able to see the development as it went along and not have to download the .NET deployment system.

A great opportunity for being one of the best sadly missed.