This was a very interesting read. Yes, it documents the CSLA framework but the book provides more than that. For example, the chapter that includes WCF custom security modules provided a far better concrete than I discerned from reading Juval Lowy's book (which I thought was excellent as well) and there is not a whole lot of reliance on CSLA in those examples. The chapters on creating custom IPrincipal objects were very informative as well. Looking at the CSLA framework code, I learned methods of using generics that I have not seen elsewhere. Whether or not you wind up using the CSLA framework, there a good takeaways from reading this book.



This is not an ORM book or framework. It does not even remotely pretend to be ORM related. ORMs do not, generally, comprehensively implement the standard Microsoft interfaces (and more) for security, validation and UI interfaces for validation message display, data binding, remoting, LINQ integration, N-tier, command pattern, etc. CSLA.NET does. Most people skip the notion of developing true business objects and head straight for datasets, entities or NHibernate. The reality is that business objects are a logical tier on top of these data access technologies. I do admit that I would like to see the author take advantage of some of the hooks for custom objects in EF 2.0 which might provide some development productivity gains, but currently his focus is on Silverlight 3 functionality.



The book is quite lengthy, but rather than being "dummies" fluff, it is to the point and understandable, much like Juval Lowy's WCF book. And while long, it is possible to skip around the book a little bit. The first 200 pages are a must read before jumping elsewhere. The design portion which covers the design of CSLA.net may not be absolutely necessary reading and is a large portion of the book, but in the end you'll wind up going back to read it and it will provide a more thorough understanding of CSLA.net