Customer Reviews

C# 2.0: The Complete Reference (Complete Reference Series)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When they say "The Complete Reference", they aren't kidding! This is the most thorough, complete book on the C# 2.0 language that I have seen. It's an excellent reference manual-definitely among the best available. This book is divided into three sections-a reference to the C# language, a reference to the .NET libraries you can reference with C#, and a section that shows how C# can be applied to a variety of programming problems.

The first section-the C# language reference-is exactly what you would expect. The author begins with an introduction to variables and operators, moves into a discussion on control statements (e.g. loops), followed by a discussion on class design. After the discussion on object oriented programming, more advanced language issues are discussed, like arrays, inheritance, delegates, and even generics (which are completely new to C# 2.0).

The second section takes a deep-dive into some of the most common .NET libraries. As the author explores these namespaces, many excellent examples are provided that go right along with the namespace being discussed. There are excellent discussions on strings, collections, multithreaded programming, and generics, just to name a few.

In the final section of the book, the author ties together many of the concepts discussed in earlier sections of the book by building several different types of applications. In this section, you can see how these applications are created from start to finish.

I was very impressed with this book-it's an excellent reference, accessible to beginning C# developers all the way up to experienced C# programmers who just can't remember the correct syntax for a particular operation. I would highly recommend it as an addition to your reference library.

Schildt has updated his C# reference with a language-centered approach. He describes Microsoft's .NET environment in the context of the language. However, he is primarily concerned to explain and document C# as a programming language, even though it is imbedded in a proprietary environment. The successful precedents for this approach extend back to Cobol, Fortran and PL/I.

Although generally thorough, the book's coverage has gaps. For example, the book rushes through C# structures in five pages (pp. 325-330), saying that a struct is "similar to a class" but failing to explain fully how it differs. Inner structures, the syntax of their uses, and their potential access conflicts are not mentioned. Neither are methods on structures other than constructors. The coverage of generic collections omits to mention the curious lack of a Reset() method in the interface their enumerators implement. It does not explain how to use generic interfaces such as IEnumerable<> at the same time as their non-generic equivalents, nor does it warn about lack of generic equivalents for interfaces such as ICloneable.

The code examples in Schildt's book, "C# 2.0, Complete Reference" (Osborne, 2006), use the antique hanging brace format carried over from Dennis Ritchie's style c. 1970 rather than the more readable aligned braces favored since then. They do not apply Microsoft's recommended naming conventions (but then neither do most books from Microsoft Press).

For the most part, however, Schildt's book fills out the empty spaces in Microsoft's documentation of C# and provides a full and well organized description of the language that software professionals will find most helpful.

This book should be titled "C# - A Beginner's Reference" This book is far from complete. It offers very little in the way of advanced reference material, and has nothing on C# Web Applications. The book is okay for a beginner's reference, but not really worth its cost for programmers who already have a background in other programming languages. This book covers the basics, basically, and that's about it. The title of this book is very misleading. I'd give it three stars; it does offer a good reference for basic material; but the misleading title brings my rating down to two stars.

I have bought this book for my son, hope it will be helpful for him, my son is agree with other rewiers that it is not for proffesionals but good for beginers. Thanks to seller, very fast, next day delivery.

I bought this book intending to have a good reference and I was not let down at all. From the other reviews I had developed pretty high hopes for this book. This book has clear sections on everything from value and reference types to delegates, events, reflection and more. Most of the sections are thorough, though a few sections could use a little more.

You won't be disappointed.

One of the best book I have ever read. Author explains every topics clearly and detail by detail. Despite it is name the book is for beginners. Instead of "complete referance" "beginner's guide" could be better name.

Well, if you have seen any of Schildt books, you have seen them all. The style is basically always the same: short, to the point, no fuss example illustrating the syntax and features of a language (be it C++, Java or C#) from A to Z. The good side is that you don't waste your time an energy on convoluted examples or wordy explanations and you get an extra clear, hands-on illustration of the language in question, which gives you the necessary confidence to start your own experimenting and fooling around. The bad side is that you are left without a global understanding of the technology and how to apply on a larger scale than the typical toy example.
Overall a great first C# book, but it needs to be followed by a more "framework oriented" one like "CLR via C#"

This is a terrific book. So far, there has been no question that I have had that this does not answer and typically, they a have an example to go with it. This book gets a big A+!

Although it is a good book I think it does not deserve its name; the complete reference. Boring examples are iteratively improved and each time same source code with little modifications given and given again. Author also not succeded to impress me about the beaty of C#; after finishing this book I immediately downloaded C# 2005 Express edition and start to do practice. While reading C# 2005 Express edition own help (via MDE: Microsoft Documentation Explorer) I started to impressed by how well Microsoft designed the C# and how powerfull the language is. C# is the good combination of C++, Delphi and Java with lots of improvements. Up to now my choice of language was C++ for performance reasons, C++ Builder for Rapid Application Development and Java for Web development. I like the C++ syntax most in these three but C# completely changed my choice. In MS MDE all examples are short, brief but still detailed. According to my opinion:
- lots of example codes in book can be removed
- book must be changed so that it is brief but still detailed
- it would be better if it is enjoyful to read

To conclude, I still like the book and find it useful but not enjoyful to read. As a starting book I suggest it (with the documentation of MS and Google search).

This book is good for beginners and perfect for advanced users. It covers many missing subjects that you cannot find in any other book.