The Philosophy of .NET

• Understand the limitations of COM
• Enumerate the benefits of .NET
• The Common Type System (CTS)
• The Common Language Specification (CLS)
• The Common Language Runtime (CLR)
• Assemblies, metadata and manifests
• The Common Intermediate Language (CIL)
• Survey the .NET Namespaces
• Platform Independent .NET (Mono / DotGnu distributions)
• Choosing a managed language (C#, VB.NET, MC++)
• Developing with Visual Studio.NET 2003
• Developing with the C# command line compiler (csc.exe)

Building .NET Applications in C#

• Defining class types using C#
• Process command line arguments
• Looping and decision constructs
• Method overloading
• C# parameter modifiers (out, ref, params)
• Working with structured exception handling

Object Oriented Programming with C#

• Constructors and Finalizers
• Encapsulation via type properties
• Static fields, members and constructors
• The const and readonly modifiers
• Implementation Inheritance and virtual members
• Abstract base classes / abstract members
• Interface based polymorphism
• Explicit interface implementation
• Rules of type casting
• Nested types
• Operator overloading

Common Language Runtime Fundamentals

• Understand value types vs. reference types
• The role of System.Object
• Understand boxing and unboxing
• The role of System.Array, System.String and System.Enum
• Buidling custom namespaces
• Investigate System.Collections
• Building type indexers
• Understanding delegate types
• The delegate / event relationship
• Interact with the CLR garbage collector (System.GC)

Understanding .NET Assemblies

• Review the limitations of classic COM binaries
• Assembly Characteristics
• Contrast private and shared assemblies
• Deploying private assemblies
• Cross language inheritance
• Understanding strong names
• Deploying shared assemblies
• Author application configuration files
• Versioning policies and shared assemblies
• Understand publisher policy
• Working with codebase

Reflection and Attribute Based Programming

• The role of reflection
• The role of System.Type
• Dynamic loading of external assemblies
• Late binding under the .NET platform
• Understand attribute based programming
• The System.Attribute type
• Building custom attributes

Programming Windows Forms

• Understand the derivation of a Form type
• The Application class
• Build Menu Systems
• Handle keyboard events
• Handle mouse events
• Survey the Windows Form controls set
• The role of GDI+ (System.Drawing and friends)
• Learn how to build Windows Forms Dialog Boxes
• Understand Form Inheritance

Input, Output and Object Serialization

• Survey the System.IO namespace
• Learn to manipulate a directory and file structure.
• Open, read, write and close text files.
• The role of object serialization
• The [Serializable] attribute
• The BinaryFormatter / SoapFormatter types

Understanding Threads

• Define a thread and understand when multithreading is useful
• Discuss the issues of concurrency and synchronization
• Use C# and the CLR to spawn and control threads
• Synchronize threads using the lock keyword
• Synchronize threads using the Monitor and Interlocked class
• The role of the [Synchronization] attribute
• Run tasks asynchronously using delegates
• Schedule task using the built-in thread pool

Interoperability with Legacy Systems

• The System.Runtime.InteropServices namespace
• Understand how to call unmanaged APIs (PInvoke)
• Interacting with custom C-based DLLs
• Call COM types from .NET types (RCW)
• Call .NET types from COM types (CCW)

Data Access with ADO.NET

• Understand the ADO.NET object model
• Work with ADO.NET DataReaders
• Working with Command types
• Build parameterized queries
• Trigger strored proceedures via ADO.NET
• Work with ADO.NET DataSets and DataAdapters
• Understand ADO.NET DataRelation types
• Work with DataView types

Web Development with ASP.NET

• Examine the architecture of an ASP.NET Web Application
• Survey the ASP.NET namespaces
• Work with the `code behind'
• Understand the role of the Page type
• Work with ASP.NET Web Controls
• Interacting with the request / response
• Trace and debug ASP.NET applications

Building (and consuming) XML Web Services

• Understand the role of XML Web Services
• The role of the [WebMethod] attribute
• The role of the Web Service Description Language (WSDL)
• Expose custom types from an XML Web Service
• Generating client proxies

A Guide to Microsoft .NET Certification

• Discuss the role of certification
• List the requirements for MCP, MCAD, MCSD
• Look at the process for achieving MCAD and MCSD certification
• List Web sites, practice tests and other certification resources