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I have read the 2nd Edition of this book and have noticed too many errors from the get go. Anyone who is serious about passing the Application Development Foundation exam MUST cross-reference with MSDN. MSDN will cover the topics with a level of detail appropriate for having the skills to pass the exam.

Hopefully, Northrup will get it right with a 3rd Edition, hence the title.
Rating: 3 / 5

“MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft® .NET Framework Application Development Foundation, Second Edition (Self-Paced Training Kits)” is a mostly successful attempt to correct the travesties of it’s occasionally apocryphal predecessor, “MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Application Development Foundation”. Northup seems to be to have ironed out most of the bugs. The book is still inadequate as a prep book for the test, but I think you can at least count on it as a useful guide and reference. Hey, it even has a proper index. It’s unusually good for a Microsoft Press book — who publish anything that can pass a spell checker.

The test itself if a vast hodgepodge of .NET leftovers, a sort of dumping ground of subjects, with no single focus and a huge domain of subject material. The preceding book was over a thousand pages and was still inadequate in covering the material. Combine that with the usual lack of imagination and interest endemic of all MS certifications with questions like “pick the right method signature” or “find the block of code that doesn’t have a bug” and you have a test that achieves nothing, but foster bitterness and anger towards Microsoft. As with its predecessor, I think you will see a lot of that bitterness expressed in book reviews. In this case, the book really doesn’t deserve it. It may be a bit unimaginative, heck even boring, but it’s competently written.

The book is not without humor, though it’s unintentional. Northup is a rabid advocate of regex functions. He never passes up an opportunity to work them in. To those of us who have experience outside of the Microsoft culture, this looks a bit like a Japanese man raised on rice wondering the American Mid-West evangelizing the wonders of wheat bread. I’ve seen a lot of this test and I’ve never seen a single question on regex. The new list of test requirements have added a single requirement for it and there may now be a question in there, but considering the vastness of the subject of regex itself and the appalling amount of useless material you have to memorize (that Microsoft will just dump or pave over in three years) for the test, that I think you can just sigh, roll your eyes and move on. It does also make a good example of the inherent weakness of the monoculture that Microsoft has created.

One complaint that I’ve heard that I think is valid is that the author feels the need to teach the subjects. The book, and its predecessor, spent a lot of time explaining individual subjects. This is great and it does make the book useful. I know I will keep it handy. But it doesn’t help with the test, and you need all the help you can get with this one. I’ll be blunt — this test is bad, very bad — and the last thing you need is to be filling precious storage with non-useful information, at least non-useful as far as surviving the test. What good is learning these subjects if you can’t pass the test? The book needs to be one or the other.

If you have to pick this or its predecessor, pick this one. Really, I think you will need both and then about 200 or 300 knowledge base articles. None of this material is adequately covered anywhere. [...].

Rating: 4 / 5