Professional C#

by Karli Watson, Christian Nagel, Simon Robinson, et al.

If we were to describe the C# language and its associated environment, the .NET framework as the most important new technology for developers for many years we would not be exaggerating. .NET is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764557599
• ISBN13: 9780764557590
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Wiley Publishing
• Length: 1356 Pages
• Weight: 3.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.4" x 7.6" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

keeps up with latest C#

C# is still a relatively new language. But here Wiley/Wrox is already on the third iteration of this book! Very up to date, with the latest C# capabilities. Just as importantly, the book has extensive coverage of how C# integrates into .NET. Specifically including how to make Microsoft Windows Forms, and how to make dynamic web pages by combining C# with ASP.NET's components. Also of interest to some of you will be the sections showing how to use C# to connect to a SQL engine, like Microsoft's SQL Server. In fact, one key message of the book is that C# derives a lot of its value from being tied into .NET and its associated family of packages. The book has over a thousand pages of details, but this take home idea concisely conveys much of the authors' intent. As the side note, the C# Collections include what Microsoft calls Dictionaries. As the authors explain, this is a data structure that is more generally known as a hash table or map. [Cf. Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming", vol 3.] Yes, there is a .NET class called Hashtable. But you might think that in the interests of conforming with a straightforward industry usage, Microsoft might have dropped "Dictionaries".

Check Table of Contents

In the table of contents it states that the appendices are at www.wrox.com. Perhaps it can be clearer, but that's where you can find them. As one of the authors on this book I can say that several chapters were completely re-written but most were updated to stay in line with Visual Studio .NET 2003 and the 1.1 version of the framework. The 2nd edition is based on version 1 of the framework.

As good as it gets!

This is truly a useful book, and my primary reference in parallel with the MSDN documentation. That is, it does not merely parrot the C# documentation, but supplements it. It gives behind-the-scenes insights, as well as useful application examples and snippets. It's as good as a 1272 page book on this expansive subject can get.

Excellent Source for Learning C# and the .NET Framework

Wrox comes through with another great book! I was looking for something that would help me learn Windows GUI for an independent studies course and so I leaned on my past experiences with Wrox Books (Beginning/Professional Active Server Pages 3.0, Beginning PHP4, Beginning ASP Databases, Beginning XML, Beginning JavaScript), which had always been a good experience to say the least. If you want to learn a language for programming in the .NET environment then this is the book for you. However, I do suggest some background experience with programming or understanding the concepts behind programming languages. Even though this book does provide excellent explanations of the topics, I think I understood concepts more easily because I've had two years of programming in C++ under my belt. Not that you need to be an experienced programmer! However, it would be good to know a little something beforehand. Otherwise, I suggest checking out the Beginning C# book which might be a little better suited for non-programmers looking to break into the realm of programming. C# really is a lot easier to understand as a starting language than C++ because Microsoft put in a lot of effort into making the language easy to use without having to know all the perplexing C routines for programming in the Win32 API.

Clear, and exaustive coverage

This book is good for both Professional and Beginners programmers, for the complete coverage and for the clear and simple explanation. It covers every C# and .Net topics from language to OOP, from VisualStudio.Net to .NET Framework. It doesn't waste space and pages, with useless repetition of C# code in the examples.