Customer Reviews

C# Developer's Headstart (Application Development)

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

 

 

This book is a waste of money, there's almost nothing in it. It reminds me of the terrible "Presenting C#" book (although I will grant that it is much more accurate).

Any other C# book is a much better buy. For example, if you want a quick treatment get "C# Essentials" from O'Reilly. For learning C#, get Archer, Liberty or Gunnerson. For a complete application oriented book get Troelsen.

This book introduced me to C# and I found it to be an excellent read. It is filled with lots of interesting and useful information. Coming from a Java and C++ background I was already familiar with OOP and this book goes over many differences between the above OO languages. This book will only wet your lips as it does not go into the details of actual programming windows applications, etc. (there are other books for that). However it gives you a rich background into the language itself, the differences between it and others, overcoming certain restrictions to the language, and porting code to C#. If you are interested in quickly learning the basics of the C# language and the .NET framework then this may be the book for you.

At the time this book was written (2001), it was probably a decent book. But, here it is mid-2007 and the book hasn't been updated. It was written specifically to C# 1.0 while the current version is at 2.0 (3.0 (Orcas) is due Real Soon Now). Offhand, because of the version changes, I noted a few minor differences between his output and mine. But, the most significant difference I found was in his discussion of Templates: the author spent a lot of time talking about how C# doesn't support them. With 2.0, however, C# got Generics which can do quite a bit of what Templates do. Since it's not really fair to rate a book on its age, here are some comments about other aspects of the book:

- First, and most importantly, the Preface states: "it is expected that the readers of this book will already be programmers with experience in at least one other language. Given this experience, readers of this book will find that they can quickly grasp the essential characteristics of C# within one chapter and then begin examining some of the more difficult areas of the language." So, as expected, the author doesn't spend a lot of time on the syntax. This is good.

- Given the above, I really would have thought he'd present the syntax in functional areas like: Sequential, Iterative, Conditional, Classes/Structures, etc.. Instead, his syntax chapter seems pretty haphazard. Also, instead of having a separate chapter (Chapter 4) where he compares C# to C++, Java, and VB, I'd have preferred it if he had made these comparisons while discussing the syntax.

- Also, even though he said in the Introduction that he was writing for experienced programmers, he spends time explaining common, object-oriented language features. For instance, inheritance.

- When he gives C# code samples, he doesn't necessarily explain the syntax. As a matter of fact, he USUALLY doesn't explain all the syntax. In many cases, someone with experience in other languages (specifically C++ and Java) can figure things out. But, there are some C# things that aren't obvious from those other languages. Also, he USUALLY doesn't provide expected output for his code samples.

- Similarly, with textual items he also tends to use terms without defining them until later. For instance, he used the term "reflection" several times in the text without defining it for several chapters.

- He does a fairly good job of giving the why and wherefore of C# and its history. But, he assumes a lot of familiarity with .NET and occasionally lapses into near indecipherable acronyms.

- The examples he uses are almost universally trivial and simplistic. They're not much use at all.

Given the above, the best I can rate Michaelis' "C# Developer's Headstart" is an OK 3 stars out of 5. I really would recommend a newer book, though.

Seriously, this book is a headstart for people who already know quite a bit about another language, preferably Java. As Java is syntatically similar with the class declaration and the book doesn't really thourghly explain even the HelloWorld program, the book is'nt for beginners.
I know quite a lot on C; not so much on Java, C++, Perl, JavaScript or SQL. Because of all this background, I like this book because it gets straight into the code. I have no need for how RAM works.
I recommend reading this book with an OOP understanding.

Because this is a quick book and my head isn't very large, I typed up the examples and put comments around the code to learn this language.

If you know Java or C++, you'll be whizzing and in no time learnt most of the language.

This is a strange book to write a review for. It's hard to understand what its mission was supposed to be. In the introduction the authors warn that the book does not deal with the basics of C# but more on "more complex and relevant issues relating to C#." I picked up this book by accident but enjoyed it a great deal. It provides an interesting insight into a number of issues in a way not covered by so many thick .NET books out there.

To sum it up, the book doesn't really teach you anything specific. If you have been already developing for .NET you'll find some interesting information inside. Personally, I enjoyed it for what it's worth.

I'm giving this book 4 stars because even though the information presented is concise and to the point, certain code samples could've been a LOT more helpful (such as an unnecessary sample on reference counting which---instead of dropping---the authors dragged around).

Great intro to C#. It took only a couple days to read and yet it provided a insight into the language, the environment and the pitfalls one may encounter with C#. I recommend this if you want to gain a quick overview of C#.