Murach's C#

by Doug Lowe and Joel Murach

Book Overview

Murach's C# is for anyone who wants to learn how to use Microsoft C# .NET for developing professional Windows applications using Visual Studio and the .NET Framework. That includes the entire range... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1890774227
• ISBN13: 9781890774226
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Mike Murach & Associates
• Length: 750 Pages
• Weight: 3.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 8.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Practical

This book presents the technical content in an easy to understand format. It has many real world type examples that have proven to be helpful in learning the basics.

Your own personal instructor!

All of Murach's books follow the same format: the left page of the open book provides the commentary for the illustrations on the right page. The examples and tutorials in the book are real-world and offer the best possible scenario for the student. I have over a dozen books on C#; if I had purchased this one first, I wouldn't have needed the others. Get this book if you need to learn C# in the shortest possible time.

The Murach Format Suits Me Perfectly

For several years now I've been successfully avoiding having to learn C#. Why? Because it basically only works with Microsoft, part of their .NET effort to tie everyone to their software. Why should I go learn something that is tied to just Microsoft systems? Answer: Because someone came by and was willing to pay a rather large amount of money for a project but insisted on C#. Like the old joke, we know what we are, we just quibble about the price. OK, so now I need to know C#, and I need to know it quickly. The solution to that problem (regardless of the language) is really simple - a Murach book. Murach has developed a format that is hands down my favorite way of learning a new language. Basically the put every tidbit that you need to know on a pair of facing pages. Typically one page has a texual description of that tidbit. The facing page then says the same thing, but in a different way. Often this is a screenshot, sometimes a drawing or a table. The key is that the facing pages use different words, different techniques to cover the same point. I find that I read both, and very frequently find myself saying, 'Oh, that's what they were talking about.' The result is that I learn the point better, faster. This new book covers the latest version of C#, Visual Studio and the .NET framework. It took me about two weeks to go through the book, the two weeks before this contract started. When I got started on the gig, I could hold my own with the other C# programmers. And that's all you can possibly ask of a book. This was not my first programming language. I've worked in at least a dozen languages over the years. I've seen some complaints about this book that it isn't really suitable for a complete beginner. Perhaps that's true, I'm not really competent to say because I'm not a complete beginner. On the other hand, when I was a complete beginner they handed me an assembly language programming book and told me to go read it. This book is a hell of a lot easier than the way I started.

Excellent for teachers and students

This is an excellent book for the beginning C# programmer. The book uses a "paired-page" format where the page on the left gives descriptions of a concept and the page on the right provides examples, syntax, and additional information. Although this does lead to some repetition, overall it provides clearer explanations of concepts that are laid out in front of you all at once. It also makes it easier to go back, find, and review information read previously. The book starts with a tour of C# which leans heavily on Visual Studio. The first three chapters cover using VS.NET and very little C# code is presented. In fact, explanations of how to work in Visual Studio are provided throughout the book. The next two sections, covering 12 chapters, cover the details of programming in C# and writing object oriented code. The coverage of OO is excellent and it will remove much of the mystery associated with OO programming. Database programming using ADO.NET is covered at a good level of detail in five chapters. The final section covers reading and writing files including using the .NET classes to read and write XML files. In many ways this book provides a level of detail not found in other books with plenty of code samples to help clarify the material. The only thing not covered is ASP and web forms. I can highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning C# or to anyone planning to teach a C# programming course. The book is well designed as a textbook for a programming class. It includes objectives, a summary, a list of important terms, and programming exercises at the end of each chapter. A student workbook and an instructor CD are available.

An excellent beginner's book to learn C#

I make no secret of being a fan of Murach books. This is the 4th Murach book I have read and the best so far. Murach books have a distinctive feel about them because of the way they are layed out. Every left hand page is a narrative and every right hand page contains diagrams and bullet points relating to the narrative. This is a format that works for me, especially in the more involved chapters where the narrative can be read and then the important points revisited on the facing page. These bullet points are also useful for using the book for reference in the weeks and months after initially reading it. The book follows a fairly conventional layout by splitting itself into sections and each section containing a number of associated chapters. Each chapter starts with a brief introduction and then list of topics covered and the page number the topic starts on. At the end of the chapter there is a short perspective paragraph and bullet points summary of what was covered in the chapter, a list of terms introduced in the chapter and some exercises to perform. The book uses the Microsoft C# IDE v7.1 as the development environment (but nearly all examples will work with v7.0) and MSDE 2000 as the database. The book contains a brief overview on how to install Visual Studio, MSDE, download the source files and attach the database used by the source files to MSDE. There are 7 chapters available for free viewing. Pros: The space in margins for making notes, the print is clear and there are plenty of diagrams and figures to supplement the text, the format of the book with regard to the left right page combinations, the information in the book is accurate with the few errors being highlighted on the publisher's web site, as applications are developed throughout the book the additional code is clearly highlighted making it easy to pick up on the additions, concepts are introduced in a logical and simplified manner being added to as the book progresses. Cons: All examples are done using only the Visual Studio (C#) .NET IDE Conclusion This book is definitely aimed at the complete newcomer to C#. No previous knowledge of the C#, te Visual Studio IDE nor databases is required. The book will give you a good grounding in the basics of C# but will leave you wanting more, not through any fault of the book but simply because the basic concepts of C# are covered in such detail that there simply isn't enough room in a book of this size to cover more advanced topics. I am certainly hoping for a murach's advanced C# book. If I had to sum up this book the term I would use is Clear and Concise. The authors very rarely labour any points and move on at a brisk but understandable pace. The accolade I can award to the authors is that after 20 years of trying and failing to find any enjoyment in programming in C this book has finally won me over and I have already had to catch myself typing C# syntax into my VB.NET projects.A postive addition to my bookcase.