Customer Reviews

Essential C# 2.0

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Essential C# 2.0 is somewhat introductory in nature, but there's enough coverage of more advanced topics to make it useful for experienced .NET developers as well. What's really different about this book is its tremendous visual impact. This book has perhaps the best visual layout of any I've seen, and it's so well done that it really helps the book get across the points Michaelis is making in this book.

Each chapter starts out with a mind map, one of my favorite tools for getting across highlights of a topic. There's a very nice deliniation of topic levels within chapters as well, with beginner and advanced topics being clearly separated out by headers and sidebar borders. The code examples get some great markup, too, with bits inside code being clearly marked out with grey background and bold text so you quickly see what the author's focusing on -- and the font for console output is way cool, too.

OK, so that's all the visual stuff which would be simply eye candy bling and rather useless if the content of the book didn't back it up. It's nice that the content does back it up. There's solid coverage of all the important topics: value vs. reference types, how the CLR/CLI works, basic object-oriented programming aspects of C#, and nice bits on delegates and events. C# 2.0 features get good coverage, and there are two nicely done chapters on threading. There's also a chapter covering interoperability via P/Invoke and unsafe code (pointers), a topic I've not seen covered in any other book.

Michaelis's writing style is clear, and he's nicely concise in the book. I appreciate that he kept the focus on C# and didn't try to span out into ASP.NET, web services, and a raft of various other topics that always seem to get lumped in with language books.

Overall I think this is a terriffic book and I'm happy to have it on my shelf!

"Essential C#" does for C# what Deitel did for Java. It's great book to learn C# from the ground up or for experienced developers. I was a bit skeptical of the claim that the book is for everyone - beginners, experienced developers, structured programmers, C/C++/Java developers and C# professionals. However, through a combination of sidebars and text that makes sense on different levels, the author managed to achieve this lofty goal.

This truly is a book for developers. It includes refactoring and other best practices. I especially liked the part on well formed types and how to properly implement equals. There is a strong emphasis on the language itself, which is great. The first mention of Windows Forms is almost page 600. A nice contrast to those book that teach the "language" solely through visual editors. The author also gives equal time to the .NET and Mono implementations.

The back cover states the book is "clear and concise." Weighing in at 700 pages, the book does manage to stay true to this claim. Code examples are short and focused. I only found one over a page long. Descriptions are clear, accurate and easy to follow. I strongly recommend this book to any considering working with C#. t really is "Essential" !

This book has extensive coverage of basic and not so basic features. I learned a lot about delegates and other advanced subjects that are usually skimmed through lightly. As I said in the title, I found this to be much better than the book "The C# Programming Language" by by Anders Hejlsberg, Scott Wiltamuth, and Peter Golde which was not much of a help to me because it was more like a long list linked book where this one deals with C# directly in each of its subjects it undertakes.

Buy it, you will not be disappointed.

This book arrived few days ago to my desk and I really must say that it is "Something else" ...
I write C# code for a while now (Not a pro, though) and find the book excellent as a tutorial, as well as a reference.
The author doesn't assume prior knowledge and that is one of the things I expect from a good "beginners book".
There are more advanced topics (as marked by the author, which is great - makes the reader pay extra attention) that makes the developer already familiar with C#, suddenly understand what's happening "Behind the scenes".

Simply written, Concise. Excellent book.

Design, writing style, and layout are good. Topics and concepts are explained well. Distinguishing features are "best-practice" recommendations that are sprinkled throughout, the "mind map" intro for each chapter, and a refreshing amount of substance that is substantially different from other C# books. Topics that are murky in other books are presented with clarity, such as covariance and contravariance. The coverage for events and delegates were particularly well done. Delegates/events are critical to master early, and a concept that many books sadly neglect.

I seriously had never programmed an object oriented language in my life. This book has been a huge help as I got moved in to .NET at work. I went from feeling totally lost to programming fully on a complex site with trust from my co-workers. That means a lot because you know how other programmers don't want you to mess stuff up :) I still have so much to learn but I have been relying on this book heavily to get me through the process. Thanks Mark for a job well done...much appreciation from my end.

I have been programming for some time. That is, moreover based in web applications. In fact, I had never touched a single tutorial or book about C# at all.
This book speaks of the language in a perhaps, what I would describe as a clear and friendly tone. The author, Michaelis explains the details very well throughout the book. He covers the fundamental topics and uses a straight-forward way to force the reader in understanding the bits and pieces of the language without having to spend an hour or so in figuring or summarizing the contents of a chapter.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in C# .

This book is very suitable for readers who already have some programming experience on other languages. It positions right there between beginner level and advanced topics. It also makes perfect balance between tutorial and reference book. It is one of the best C# books that I have read so far.

Good balance between a reference book and one to learn from. I agree with most of the other reviews. The organization is great and progressive.

If and when I ever get around to learning C# (after Ruby and Ajax and ...), this book would appeal to me on many different levels... Essential C# 2.0 by Mark Michaelis. It sets out to do a lot, and it actually delivers...

Contents: Introducing C#; Data Types; Operators and Control Flow; Methods and Parameters; Classes; Inheritance; Interfaces; Value Types; Well-Formed Types; Exception Handling; Generics; Collections; Delegates and Events; Reflection and Attributes; Multithreading; Multithreading Patterns; Platform Interoperability and Unsafe Code; The Common Language Infrastructure; Download and Installing the C# Compiler and the CLI Platform; Complete Source Code Listings; C# 2.0 Topics; Index

When you get a book that focuses on being a tutorial for a language, you can pretty much plan on it not appealing much to the intermediate coder. In most cases, that person already knows the basics of the language. As a result, the value of the entire package is pretty much limited. Michaelis tries to go beyond that, to give the "beyond beginner" a reason to keep reading. He includes a number of "sidebar" insets that are labeled "Beginner Topic" and "Advanced Topic". These advanced tips are things that aren't normally spelled out for beginners, nor are they necessarily flagged in the documentation. For instance, have you ever given any thought as to whether the increment and decrement operators are thread-safe? You might be surprised, and there are ways to make sure you don't get bit by an error that would be very hard to find. He also starts out each chapter with a mindmap diagram to show the topic and the mental branches that will be covered in the material. I like the idea of knowing visually where you are going before you start reading. It helps me to put everything in some sort of mental framework, to "know what I don't know", so to speak... Finally, he also deals with syntax and structured flow programming before diving into object-oriented stuff. For someone like me who came from a procedural language background, this is far more comfortable for me than to try and solve both syntax and OO concepts at once.

This is definitely one of the more solid learning tools to a language that I've come across. Plenty of code, the promise of on-going value over time, and a few references to the movie "The Princess Bride" thrown in for good measure. How can you *not* like a book like that? :)