Essential C# 3.0: For .NET Framework 3.5 (2nd Edition) (Microsoft .Net Development Series) (Paperback)

by Mark Michaelis (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Praise for Essential C# 3.0 

“If you want to be a C# developer, or if you want to enhance your C# programming skills, there is no more useful tool than a well-crafted book on the subject. You are holding such a book in your hands.”

–From the Foreword by Charlie Calvert, Community Program Manager, Visual C#, Microsoft

 

“In a time when you can search online for any reference material, Essential C# 3.0 is the one book I still bother to carry in my bag. Any developer can hit F1 for help with the language syntax; this book, however, arms me with the knowledge to make better design and coding decisions (and the confidence to say so). You know when a book has more than twenty pages of index that it’s got depth covered, and although Essential C# 3.0 has introductory chapters, it progresses effortlessly into the lesser known corners of the language, which makes this book indispensible to any level of C# developer.”

–Troy Magennis, C# MVP and creator of HookedOnLINQ.com

 

“If you are new to C#, as I was, Mark’s book is an excellent way to start. His approach takes you step by step through the structure and syntax of the language, making it easy to understand how things work. I found the code samples extremely helpful and supportive of the concepts being discussed.”

–Robert Stokesbary, senior consultant, Option Explicit

 

“This book expands on the concepts introduced in Essential C# 2.0 to include C# 3.0 enhancements. One great aspect of this book is that it not only covers the new 3.0 enhancements in great detail, but it also shows where it makes sense to utilize these new features over the existing 2.0 features. While I have been programming C# for many years, I find myself referring to this book often and always seem to find something new buried in the pages. This is a must-read for both the C# newbie as well as the C# seasoned veteran.”

–Michael Stokesbary, senior software engineer, Itron Inc.

 

Praise for the First Edition 

“Essential C# 2.0 pulls off a very difficult task. The early chapters are comprehensible by beginning developers, while the later chapters pull no punches and provide the experienced developer with the detailed information they need to make the most of C# 2.0. Starting with the first chapter, Mark has successfully interwoven tidbits of information useful to even the most advanced developer while keeping the book approachable.”

–Chris Kinsman, chief architect, Vertafore, Microsoft Regional Director

 

“How refreshing! This book deals with C# thoroughly, rather than skimming over the whole .NET framework. It is valuable to newcomers and professionals alike.”

–Jon Skeet, C# MVP

 

“Essential C# 2.0 is a one-stop shop for an experienced programmer looking to ramp up on one of the hottest languages around today. Mark delivers an intelligent and detailed tour of C#, providing newcomers to the language with a solid foundation of skill on which to build their next generation of applications.”

–Stephen Toub, technical editor, MSDN Magazine

 

“This book provides complete, up-to-date coverage of all the programming constructs in C#. Masterfully organized, it allows beginning programmers to get on board and leads more experienced programmers into the world of structured programming. Because of its unwavering focus on the essential programming constructs of C#–such as generics, delegates, and much more–this book is indispensable. For programmers who want to solve their day-to-day programming issues using the latest features this modern programming language has to offer, this book is indispensable.”

–Narendra Poflee, IT integration specialist, Itron Inc.

 

“Essential C# 2.0 is an ideal book for all programmers interested in C#. If you are a beginner, you will quickly learn the basics of C# programming and become familiar with the concepts. The flow of the text is easy to follow and does a great job of not repeating concepts that have already been covered. For the experienced programmer, this book has priceless nuggets embedded within its pages, making it a great read for programmers who are already familiar with C#. This will be a book that I will keep next to my computer for years to come.”

–Michael Stokesbary, software engineer, Itron Inc.

Essential C# 3.0 is an extremely well-written and well-organized “no-fluff” guide to C# 3.0, which will appeal to programmers at all levels of experience with C#. This fully updated edition dives deep into the new features that are revolutionizing programming, with brand new chapters covering query expressions, lambda expressions, extension methods, collection interface extensions, standard query operators, and LINQ as a whole.

 

Author Mark Michaelis covers the C# language in depth, and each importantconstruct is illustrated with succinct, relevant code examples. (Complete code examples are available online.) Graphical “mind maps” at the beginning of each chapter show what material is covered and how each topic relates to the whole. Topics intended for beginners and advanced readers are clearly marked.

 

Following an introduction to C#, readers learn about 

• C# primitive data types, value types, reference types, type conversions, and arrays
• Operators and control flow, loops, conditional logic, and sequential programming
• Methods, parameters, exception handling, and structured programming
• Classes, inheritance, structures, interfaces, and object-oriented programming
• Well-formed types, operator overloading, namespaces, and garbage collection
• Generics, collections, custom collections, and iterators
• Delegates and lambda expressions
• Standard query operators and query expressions
• LINQ: language integrated query
• Reflection, attributes, and declarative programming
• Threading, synchronization, and multithreaded patterns
• Interoperability and unsafe code
• The Common Language Infrastructure that underlies C# 

Whether you are just starting out as a programmer, are an experienced developer looking to learn C#, or are a seasoned C# programmer interested in learning the new features of C# 3.0, Essential C# 3.0 gives you just what you need to quickly get up and running writing C# applications.

About the Author

Mark Michaelis is an enterprise software architect at Itron Inc. In addition, Mark recently started intelliTechture, a software engineering and consulting company offering high-end consulting in Microsoft VSTS/TFS, BizTalk, SharePoint, and .NET 3.0. Mark also serves as a chief software architect and trainer for IDesign Inc.

 

Mark holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Illinois and an M.S. in computer science from the Illinois Institute of Technology. Mark was recently recognized as a Microsoft Regional Director. Starting in 1996, he has been a Microsoft MVP for C#, Visual Studio Team System, and the Windows SDK. He serves on several Microsoft software design review teams, including C#, the Connected Systems Division, and VSTS. Mark speaks at many developer conferences and has written numerous articles and books.

 

When not bonding with his computer, Mark is busy with his family or training for the Ironman. Mark lives in Spokane, Washington, with his wife Elisabeth, and three children, Benjamin, Hanna, and Abigail.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 880 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 2 edition (September 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321533925
• ISBN-13: 978-0321533920
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.8 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #58,899 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for intermediate C# programmers, September 24, 2008

By	Andy Pennell (Kirkland, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

To skip to the chase, I like this book a lot. My personal C# level is Intermediate: although I was on the Microsoft C# team for many years, I did close to zero C# coding as I worked on the debugger, which was entirely written in C++. Ironically once I left the team I did a lot more, and these days I am doing it daily. The book aims for a range of users, from beginners to advanced, but its hard for me to vouch how useful it is for either of those extremes. I can tell you that for Intermediates it is great.

The book is easy to read, and labels specific sections as Beginners (which I mostly speed-read through) and as Advanced (which I usually read carefully). Something I particularly liked is the way it described the C# changes from 1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0 for each area: even though many of the 3.0 changes occurred while I was on the C# team, I never got the chance to really use them, and the book managed to remind me of lesser-used C# 2.0 features that I had plain forgotten (like nullable types).

I am not a big fan of the MSDN web site, in fact it drives me crazy almost every day I use it, and it especially drives me crazy when I am trying to find C# things. Before this book, delegates were my biggest C# bugaboo: I could never get the syntax quite right, and I'd go off and look at other folks code in our project and try to copy what they did, and I'd eventually get something that compiled. It turns out that one of the reasons I was confused is that the syntax has evolved over the C# versions, and our project uses pretty much all of them, depending I think on the author and when the code was written. I really loved Chapter 12, which is all about delegates, and after reading the book I managed to write some new delegate code without so much as a compiler error. It also taught me how to read and write the new 3.0 syntax for lamda expressions, and although I can't say I can do those right first time, I can at least read them and get one of my own to compile in a few tries: a great improvement.

The book doesn't try to cover the myriad of .NET Framework features, and sticks just to the basics like Object, Collections and some on Threads. That suits me just fine, MSDN is just-about-usable when it comes to Framework documentation.

The book is not perfect: each chapter starts with a Mind Map, which is a star-shaped diagram that attempts to explain the contents of the following chapter: it was meaningless to me. Its coverage of platform invoke is also lacking, especially in marshalling and pointer handling, and that is one area that MSDN is particularly poor so I usually resort to internet-wide searches for answers to my issues in that area. The chapter on Query Expressions I found hard going after a while, but I think that is due to the subject matter and my mind, not the book. Once I actually start using LINQ I'm sure a revisiting of the Chapter 15 will make a lot more sense the second time around.

In summary I like this book a lot: its level suited my skill set perfectly, and it taught me a bunch of new things as well as reminding me of a few forgotten gems. It will take its place on my desk at work as the first place I turn to for C# information.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars K&R for C#, September 6, 2008

By	T. Heavey (Spokane, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When I was learning C programming, many years ago, I started with The C Programming Language by Kernighan and Ritchie. This 228 page book provided an understanding of bare syntactic components of the language through the semantics that gave us the foundation to be productive.

Mark's book feels like K&R to me. A high level of detail provided, yet still readable. This book can be used for learning and for reference. I expect to keep it close on my desk as I did with K&R.

Of course, time has marched on and this book is not a thin 200 pages. It covers the complexity and nuance of modern abstractions of the C# language. This is especially true of the new advances in the 3.0 version that supports many cool new features many of us look forward to implementing.

Like K&R some may not grok C# through this book. But I believe that this book is the best place to start for getting the usage and reference knowledge of C# and its intimate integration into the .NET Framework.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book about C# and the CLR, November 3, 2008

By	K. Osenkov (Redmond, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The book requires pretty much no programming background, and beginners can ramp up easily. One immediate thing about Essential C# 3.0 is that the book is very easy to read. You literally swallow page after page freely and effortlessly. This is one of the major reasons why I'm recommending this book to beginners who ask me where to start.

The book continues to do a great job at the intermediate level, with chapters about classes, inheritance, interfaces and value types. A great asset is a special chapter called Well-Formed Types, which collects a series of useful information and best practices.

C# 2.0 features are covered well in a dedicated chapter about Generics and also in other parts of the book (iterators and yield return, anonymous methods).

Of course, given the book's title, C# 3.0 features and LINQ are introduced and explained well in the following chapters: Delegates and Lambda Expressions, Collection Interfaces with Standard Query Operators, Query Expressions. Several other chapters show more aspects of using the C# language: Events, Exception Handling, Building Custom Collections.

Finally, an advanced C# user will find a lot of interesting things here as well. I was particularly attracted by a great chapter on Reflection and Attributes, and the two "icing-on-the-cake" chapters: Multithreading and Multithreading patterns.

To sum up, a great book about C# for every reader - beginner, intermediate, advanced. It's not only about the language - CLR is also covered pretty well (IL, garbage collection, JIT, AppDomains, reflection, threading). This book doesn't cover any of the applied libraries (such as ASP.NET, ADO.NET, WPF or Silverlight), but even without it, it's already more than 700 pages thick. I also really love the formatting, fonts, spacing and illustrations - very ".NET-style".

A great read and highly recommended.