C# Programming Evolution [Paperback]

Kevin Hoffman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 27, 2004

Experience with C# programming in the .NET environment is one thing. Actually applying it is another. Issues can often creep up when you begin to apply your programming knowledge to a practical application and resources for troubleshooting are limited. Until now. C# Programming Evolution offers you reusable, real-world techniques through targeted activities. You'll work with a complete example .NET enterprise application to learn techniques that will help you not only customize the example application but also build new applications from beginning to end. You will cover the three main user interfaces: Windows Forms, ASP.NET Web Forms and Pocket PC, as well as how to make practical use of XML Web Services. The .NET environment is constantly changing. C# Programming Evolution will make sure that you won't get left behind.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kevin Hoffman started programming on a Commodore VIC-20 donated by his grandfather. Ever since then, he has been hopelessly addicted to programming. Instead of spending time outside, absorbing rays from that big yellow thing (he's not even sure what it's called), he spent most of his time as a kid and up through high school and college learning as many programming languages as he could get his hands on. At one time or another, he has written applications in ADA, Assembly, Scheme, Lisp, Perl, Java, Python, Tcl/Tk, C, C#, VB.NET, C++, Pascal, Delphi, Visual Basic, VAX/VMS Pascal and BASIC, dozens of proprietary scripting languages, PL/SQL and probably a few more that he can't remember. Oh, and he's even written a few programs for OS/2 and Mac OS X.

He started out working for a company that produces scientific instruments. He wrote code that interfaced PCs with data logging and gathering tools as well as real-time data analysis programs. From there he moved on to working technical support for Unix systems, PCs, SQL databases and client/server applications. After that he made the infamous jump to a dot-com, where he wrote an extensive amount of Visual Basic, VBScript and ASP code. After another job working with another n-Tier, COM-based ASP application, he moved to Houston, where he now endures the heat with his wife, dog and two cats while working on ASP.NET and Web service applications, providing public records search Web sites and services.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Sams (May 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672326027
• ISBN-13: 978-0672326028
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,085,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I got my first start programming in BASIC on a Commodore Vic-20 that my grandfather repaired. Ever since then, I have been learning everything I can about programming and my current obsession: C# and the .NET Framework 3.0

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A case study, October 16, 2004

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: C# Programming Evolution (Paperback)

You can consider this book as a case study, where Hoffman has chosen to show how to develop an example application. This constitutes the backbone of the book. The application touches upon many real life development issues. Like building in security, or hooking the application to a back end database. (Microsoft's SQL Server is used in the book, unsurprisingly.) Enough code is shown for you to use as a jumping off template for your actual needs. Realistically, if you do this with any of the sample code, your code may/will end up far longer and more intricate. For pedagogic clarity, Hoffman introduces just enough complexity in his code to show nontrivial capabilities. But not too much that it obscures the essence. However, you must expect that, for example, your SQL queries will be more involved, and so too your parsing of the returned ResultSets. But, as a programmer, you should know that often with a new, unfamiliar language, all you need is a few functional examples. Like what Hoffman provides.

Plus, if you come from a Java or C++ background, the book should be easy sailing. C# is not that different from Java in syntax. And the use of interfaces, like Java but unlike C++, should be appreciated from the examples.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good choice for the application of demonstration, July 20, 2004

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: C# Programming Evolution (Paperback)

There are two approaches one can take to the writing of a book on programming. You can start with a series of small programs, each of which demonstrates a small number of topics and none of which is useful, and then end with a larger program that may have some uses. The second is to take a functional, useful program and deconstruct it into segments, each of which can be understood ala carte. This one is by far the most difficult, as most programs cannot easily be deconstructed into parts understandable by a beginner. Furthermore, it is difficult to get anywhere close to complete coverage of the basic features of a language when using a large program. If you attempt to include them all, then the program can take on an artificial nature.
The second approach is taken in this book and it succeeds about as well as it can be done. The program is a toolkit that allows you to create an opinion survey. Since the problem is a fundamental data capture problem it passes the first, necessary test of being easy to understand. The interface is also one that lends itself well to a logical series of simple screens, each of which has a small amount of GUI elements. Simple radio or checklists for the responses make it easy to create each of the pages in the survey. While textfields are used, they are ?special? screens used for capturing data such as optional names and addresses. Finally, a large survey would require several people to collect the data, which makes it a natural for a distributed application.
The capturing of the data is also easily done, and there is very little in the way of analysis. Nearly all of the operations on the data are simple counting of the responses. At the end, pie charts are drawn, but the author openly encourages the reader to ?borrow someone else?s wheel.? Therefore, the author made an excellent choice in the program used in the demonstration.
Can you learn the basics of C# from this book? No, not all of them, but that is not a serious flaw. It is possible to learn how large programs can be structured in C# and how the classes and methods interact to create a complete and distributed .NET application. That is the purpose of the book, and if that is your interest, then it will satisfy your need.

3.0 out of 5 stars They might have spoiled this book with the first chapter, October 13, 2005

By 

Wilson "mickeymax" (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: C# Programming Evolution (Paperback)

I can see many people getting stuck like I did on the first chapter and I can see many people giving up there. Which is a shame but they really should have given the book to a test audience first, and that "Flash" contents screen looks good but does not really help. What makes things worse is that the publisher/author have not got a help page up. (If you find one please let us know).

The actual idea and mini-project in the book are very good its just the struggle that "newbies" will have getting it up and running. ( I have spent 4 hours so far ). I think if you are very familiar with .NET and IIS etc you will be OK but then these probably are not the people that would want to buy this book.

I would have given the book a 4 but I give it a 3 for lake of care in the user installation "experience".