C# Bible [Paperback]

Jeff Ferguson (Author), Brian Patterson (Author), Pierre Boutquin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0764548344 | ISBN-13: 978-0764548345 | Publication Date: June 15, 2002 | Edition: 1

100% comprehensive, the C# Bible will have even beginning programmers up and running with Microsoft's new C# language quickly and easily. But this title does not stop at just presenting the C# language - it teaches practical application development in the new .NET Framework. Starting at ground zero, readers will benefit from veteran developer Jeff Ferguson's insight into topics that include:
* Background of C#
* .NET concepts
* Defining data with variables
* Building containers with arrays
* Writing expressions and statements
* Object Oriented Programming with C#
* Maintaining state with fields
* Defining behavior with methods
* Building WinForm and WebFom applications
* Using C# in ASP.NET
* Working with COM

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

* Master all the elements of this powerful new language from Microsoft
* Harness object-oriented programming techniques and advanced language features
* Create Web services, ASP.NET applications, and other .NET solutions

If C# can do it, you can do it, too . . .

Blending the object-oriented power of C++ with the simplicity of Visual Basic, C# is the ideal language for building sophisticated .NET components and applications. This all-in-one guide by a team of .NET programming pros delivers everything you need to get up and running with C# - a complete tour of the language and practical guidance on developing a variety of .NET solutions. Take the language tour and get the scoop on C# basics and object-oriented techniques as well as on advanced topics such as delegates and versioning. Then turn to the solutions section for all the examples and source code you need to jumpstart a C# project, whether it's a Windows Form or an ASP.NET application.

Inside, you'll find complete coverage of C#
* Get up to speed on expressions, functions, data types, and other C# fundamentals
* Master classes, overloaded operators, inheritance, and other object-oriented tools
* Harness the power of namespaces, interfaces, enumerations, and delegates
* Explore the ins and outs of exceptions, attributes, versioning, and unsafe code
* Create real-world Windows Forms and WebForms applications
* Build components to access files or a database
* Use C# in an ASP.NET application
* Integrate COM with .NET using C#

About the Author

Jeff Ferguson is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD) with over 10 years of professional software development experience. Jeff is a Senior Consultant for Magenic Technologies, a Microsoft Certified Solutions Provider Partner whose clients include Microsoft themselves. Jeff has extensive experience in n-tier application development with Visual C++, ASP, SQL Server and other related technologies, and has been working with the new C# language since the early pre-beta stages.
Jeff is active in the .NET developer community, and is a contributor to The Visual C++ Developer's Journal, a popular programmer's magazine.

Brian Patterson currently work for Affina, Inc., as a Technical Team Leader, where he is generally working with C++ on HP-UX or Windows development with any number of the Visual Studio languages.

Jason Beres has been a software developer for 10 years. He is currently a consultant in South Florida and works exclusively with Microsoft technologies.

Pierre Boutquin is a senior software architect in the treasury of a major Canadian bank, where he helps develop leading-edge market risk management software.

Meeta Gupta has a master's degree in computer engineering. She is presently working at NIIT Ltd., where she designs, develops, and authors books on a varied range of subjects.

Product Details

• Paperback: 798 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (June 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764548344
• ISBN-13: 978-0764548345
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,214,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good bang for the buck, September 25, 2002

By 

S. Dewan (Rancho Santa Margarita, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: C# Bible (Paperback)

First of all, let me state that this is not my first C# book. So I can't offer the perspective of someone who is new to the language and wants to learn it from this book. My objective for buying this book was to expand my C# library with a book covering some advanced features of the language.

Simply stated, this is a good book filled with useful information that comes at a very reasonable price. I don't think it's a "comprehensive" reference to C# (what book is?) and it doesn't go into great depth on any one topic. But it does offer a very broad cross-section of the language.

Since I've purchased the book I've found myself opening it to find out information that is not clearly explained in the MSDN library and not mentioned at all in other books. And the majority of the time, that information was covered in this book in a simple, succinct manner. For example, very few books out there cover asynchronous I/O in C#, but C# Bible devotes 6 pages to the topic - with sample code.

For the price, this book is a worthwhile addition to your C# library.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Decent, but not all I expected, June 6, 2003

By 

Michael R Mayer (Fort Worth, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: C# Bible (Paperback)

I praised this book on a Mircosoft newsgroup... But the more I read this the less I like it. I wanted to share some thoughts here. After comparing this book to a few others on C#, I feel this has one a more comprehensive table of contents. You get a full 9 pages on XML commenting while others give a paragraph or two. There are some cool chapters such as "Building Mobile Applications", "Working with COM", "Working with COM+ Services" and ".NET Remoting". These are topics that my 1600 page VB.NET book (Francesco Balena, Microsoft Press) didn't cover.

However, there are a lot of typos, a lot of fluff, explanations are sometimes very poor, and organization is pretty bad.

It hasn't been very thoroughly proofread. Take this for example: "Abstract classes are also, by definition, virtual methods..." Still not sure how a class can be a method. There are a lot more like this, but re-reading the paragraph you can generally figure out what they're talking about.

By fluff, I mean that they do things like give an example of operator overloading for each and every unary operators (come on, do I need an example for unary plus AND unary minus?) Or how to cause about 6 different exceptions (OutOfMemory, StackOverflow, NullReference, etc) and how to catch each one. It's a good way to pad the page count, that's about all.

The overall organization of the book doesn't make it a very good read, either. It really skips around a lot. For example, talking about overloading members and virtual members BEFORE talking about classes seems like a poor choice to me if you're really aiming to help novice programmer.

It claims to be written for novice and experienced developer alike, but I'm not sure it makes a great first book on .NET. Although, if you are a veteran programmer, you'll fly through the first 11 chapters since they are written more so for the novice.

If you already know VB.NET and want to transition to C# (like I'm doing) then this book will get you up and running with all of the important things. However, the WROX books have gotten some good reviews on newsgroups, so I might give those a try instead.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Poorly Written, Full of Typos, But Better Than Most, May 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: C# Bible (Paperback)

This books is poorly written. It tries to be a book for beginners, which is fine with me, but it then mentions complex topics in passing without elaboration. For instance, it talks briefly about structures. It assumes I know what/how/when to use structures vs. classes (until much, much later in the book). What's the difference between a structure and a class? It just assumes that I know. That may not be the best example, but it's one of MANY examples.

Another qualm I have with this book is it is too much "what" with very little "why". It pays very little attention to best practices. For example, it will tell you how to implement an interface, but what are the best ways to implement an interface. Granted this gets into more esoteric OO design concepts, but still, give me some ideas on HOW to do stuff, not just WHAT I can do. Most other programming books have more of this HOW kind of discussion.

Finally, there are the annoying typos. It clearly shows that this book was just thrown together. The quality just isn't there.

I can't recommend a specific alternative, but go with something that has better reviews.

***********************

OK - I'm revising my review as of 5/21/03. The above review still holds, BUT I have now read 2 other C# books, and to my utter astonishment, they are worse. So - this is the best book I have found yet, though it has some serious issues, as I mention above.