Customer Reviews

Beginning C# Objects: From Concepts to Code

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A monumentally comprehensive explanation of object-oriented programming, instantiated in C#. Barker and Palmer cover all the concepts of OO. But for this to be meaningful to a reader, you have to pick a language in which to express these concepts. They chose C#. In no small way because there are two OO languages in common use: C++ and Java. For each of these, you can easily find several well written books on how to implement OO in them.

Whereas C# is scarcely three years old. Certainly, there are books about it. But the authors have focussed on object modelling and use this, in a top-down fashion, to drive the description of C#'s properties.

If you are already fluent in OO from elsewhere, then you will breeze through the OO ideas here. I daresay that the authors would be the first to state that they invent nothing new in OO concepts here. But if you are new to OO, this book will certainly educate you. Though be prepared to block out a substantial number of days to go through it!

I have been writing very poor C# applications for 3 years. I bought a copy of Beginning C# Objects because I wanted to learn to take advantage of all of the object oriented features of C# without having to slog through excessive examples of object-oriented theory or have to translate object-oriented lessons from other languages such as C++ or Java into C#.

This book was everything I hoped it would be. This book carries over knowledge imparted in Beginning Java Objects (Jacquie Barker Apress 2003) spending equal time discussing object-oriented theory as well as C# implementation. While most programming books rely on the reader to "read between the lines" of code examples to explain complex theory this book excels at providing clear easy-to-read well written explanations.

I especially liked the first part of the book with discussion of objects and classes, object interactions and the relationship between objects including the distinguishing features of object-oriented programming languages with relation to C#.

This is an outstanding book on C# objects!

The book is broken into three parts. Part One gives you the ABC?s of objects. Part Two discusses object modeling. Part Three translates a UML ?Blueprint? into C# code.

Part One is by far the best section in the book. I can honestly say I understand basic C# syntax and how objects are applied in C#. It flows very smoothly and makes learning C# very easy.

Part Two is a good introduction to UML. If you want to get into architecture, this is a good start but you will definitely more.

Part Three takes the ?blueprint? that was built in Part Two and builds the application. The first chapter of Part Three is over 100 pages of a more advanced looked at C#. Chapter 15 goes into file persistence. It was nicely laid out but I wish they had used a database instead of ASCII files. Chapter 16 ties the GUI to the business object. Personally, I think this chapter should have had a little more meat.

This book definitely gets 5 stars and if anyone ever tells me they don?t understand OOP or C#, I will tell them to read this book.

This is a good book and will teach object oriented programming much better than any other book I have read. I have read about 200 pages so far and it has been excellent. I would love to give this book 5 stars but two things a preventing that: 1. The review exercises don't have any suggested answers anywhere that I can find. 2. I have emailed the authors with no response. Other than these two problems this book is very interesting and seems to be an excellent OO book.

This is an amazing book covering a broad spectrum of techniques involved in modern object oriented design. However, I was a little disappointed with the last section where the authors walked us through the actual implementation. The "meat" of the development lacked a formal use of collection classes with the intent of providing iterative lists. The did touch base on this a bit, but not the way they would have if this were a real project. I don't consider collections and dictionaries to be outside the scope of a "beginner" book. Also, they could have at least touched base on some intermediate topics such as the use of some basic patterns. It's very difficult to perform object modeling today without the basic use of factory patterns and singleton patterns, etc. A small section or chapter on these topics would have really put the icing on the cake with this one. Anyway, congrats guys and bravo. A terrific book!

Indeed an excellent book. I paid over twice the cost of the book for an online course on object modelling and the calibre of this book is far superior.

The detail of the highlights of this book have already been covered by other reviewers.

My $0.02 - it would be great if the author could publish suggested solutions to the exercises on her website. May I venture to suggest even vetting solutions sent in by readers(that may save you the time and effort), or even a group on yahoo for this purpose - heck, here it is - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CSharp_OO

For years I suffered from confusion regarding general object-oriented methodology. I'd read books that dealt with the syntax of object-oriented features, but none of these books dealt with the big picture of object-oriented architecture. They take you through the first steps ("this is how you define a class...", "this is how one class inherits from another...", etc) but none of them dealt with the next logical phase of learning; i.e. how do you "do" object-orientation in your software? In addition to that glaring deficiency, many of the books were difficult to read, being a tad bit academic and on the dry side...and some were completely dehydrated!

Imagine my surprise when I happened upon this book. Without a doubt this was everything I needed in a book like this. Very well written with a refreshingingly informal style, the book starts out explaining C#'s syntax and powerful features. From the very beginning of the book the authors tie-in what you're learning with a case study of how to design and implement a system with a modestly complex internal data structure (a student registration system for university courses). Examples are very clear, there are plenty of nice little nuggets of advice (things that you should get in the habit of doing) and most importantly WHY you should do these things (backed up with brief, easy to understand code).

Read this book from beginning to end. Then, read it again. It's very easy reading and won't take long to get through, especially if you're familiar with many object-oriented principles. I think you'll find yourself having many "AHA!" moments when reading. You'll be on your way to being a fully competant software architect ready to take on big projects with confidence. I only wish I had a book like this 5 years ago.

This is an extremely useful book. The concepts are clearly explained at every stage. I think the authors know their subjects well and also how to impart their knowledge to others.
I really thank these two guys for a well written book. Concepts I did'nt know before were clearly explained; those that I knew took on new meaning through their simple but refreshing approach.
Other technical writers can learn a thing or two from the authors about the art of writing.
This book will remain in my library for some time to come. I will be on the lookout for other titles from these two guys.

I am an ASP/VBScript developer, and I am attempting in my spare time to move to ASP.NET and C#. This book does an excellent job of teaching C# and the fundamentals of object oriented programming. This is the perfect book if you want to establish a strong foundation in C# for yourself.

The author does a great job of holding the reader's hand, and the pace is great. The writing style is smooth and natural, and the author really seems to care about conveying concepts as clearly as possible.

Overall, I'm happily surprised by how easy this book is to learn from, and I think it's ideal for web programmers wondering how to get started in C# and object oriented programming.

First off I must say that the authors do an exemplary job at providing clear and concise explanations of object oriented programming. But, the readers who give this book 5 stars must possess an amazing ability to assimilate a huge amount of theoretical information (without applying any of it). Although I haven't gotten to the last page of the book I felt compelled to review the book at this time anyways. I have been through 600 pages of theory and pseudo code and I have yet to write a single line of C# code. Unfortunately - this is not my preferred approach to learning a programming language.

For those of you who prefer a bit of theory in manageable chunks followed a bit of hands on practice then this book is not for you. I can only hope that the last "hands on" section which I am about to tackle turns out to be valuable. Otherwise - it back to Internet tutorials and the like.