The major difficulty I have with this book is actually the subject matter. The managed extensions are a collection of ugly keywords with the double leading underscores Microsoft seems to favour. Anyone unfortunate enough to have used MFC would know what to expect. Let me just say that the managed extensions make MFC look positively engineered by comparison.

To make it even harder to work up an interest, the subject is now dead. It seems that someone was listening to the sound of retching that followed the language's birth and it was promptly drowned. The replacement C++/CLI makes a lot more sense, and you don't have to hold your nose to use it. If you find yourself forced into a position where you have to read this book, quit.

Microsoft press published the book, so it was never going to contain an honest appraisal of the merits of the extensions. Instead, the author's distaste is apparent in the lack of any feeling in the text. Richard Grimes, once a prominent writer on all matters .NET, famously disassociated himself from the cause and I wonder if this book wasn't a factor. Anyone interested in writing might find this book interesting as a study of what happens to style when the love is gone.