Customer Reviews

Learn to Program with C#

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have yet to see a beginner's book on C# that even comes close to this one. It is amazing how hundreds of C# books out there misses a critical point that the reader may not understand the material very well unless it is explained in easy detail. This book does not miss its easy details.

I have intermediate skillset in C# and I still found this book helpful because it provides a refreshing perspective on the fundamentals of C# programming. The book does not merely focus on how to program, but on what circumstances one should use certain features. This is something not every C# book will offer.

If you read this book and still can't understand the basic of C#, then programming is not for you.

I took a chance on this book because it said that it was a "true beginners book". I had zero computer programming skills or knowledge. I knew some basic PC tasks, like using word, the internet and manipulating some pics I got off my camera, but again zero programming. Everyone I talked to recommened books that were supposed to be for the beginner but everyone of them required at least some elementary background with basic programming terms. I was very frustrated until I found John Smileys book.

His unique classroom style writing approach let me feel apart of his class. What most impressed me was that nothing was taken for granted and nothing was presented or used in the examples without detailed and complete explinations. Most other books I came across program concepts that they dont explain until 3 chapters later.

I was never lost or confused at any stage of my study with this book. Not only was it a complete teaching but the book doesnt requier you to purchase expensive software in order to learn C#. In fact his approach better prepares you to later learn Visual Studio because you now understand how the code is generated and can go in and code on your own if you wanted.

The book built my understanding of C#, my vocabulary for future programming, it gave me confidence that the C# mountain could be conquered, and it left me with the ability to pick up any other C# book and learn.

True to the title, "Learn to Program with C#" clearly introduces the basic principles of computer programming while teaching Microsoft's C# language. This book will be useful to both novice programmers and to programmers, like myself, with some experience in another language. In fact, my earlier experience is in Fortran, Basic and Visual Basic, which I initially learned in a pair of courses taught by the author, John Smiley, several years ago. In reading a review copy of his new book I recalled Smiley's unassuming teaching style that allows each student to build confidence while learning the fundamentals of the language. As a programmer, but without knowledge of any version of "C," I was able to breeze through the introductory chapters, while refreshing my knowledge of concepts such as the "systems development life cycle," which are important to consider before embarking on any programming project. In this book, John Smiley places the reader in a university classroom with himself as the first-person narrator and instructor. Throughout the book, we follow the development of an actual C# application as a "class project" case study. The classroom concept, with named male and female students who ask intelligent questions, is easy to relate to and follow, but is not at all simplistic. This narrative format, unusual for a technical book, works well to lead the reader through the issues that arise during development of a project. Smiley has a very easy-going tone and seemed to anticipate questions that I had regarding the specifics of C#. For me, the most interesting chapters are numbers six through nine in which I learned about methods, instantiable classes, controlling access to object data, and inheritance. I even enjoyed learning about "overloaded constructors," which would have previously seemed to be an arcane concept. All the topics that Smiley undertakes to teach in his book are clearly explained and fully illustrated with "screen shots" and sample code that build pieces of the application that runs through the book. With Learn to Program C#, I think that I learned enough to begin writing C# applications capable of prompting for user input, creating forms with textboxes and buttons, manipulating data, and creating reusable objects.

I'm using this book to teach C# at the University level and I find it to be an excellent book to teach students the new C# language, expecially those with no prior programming experience. I've used John Smiley's other books on programming languages in other classes I've taught, and believe me, it makes the instructor's job easy.

The book is full of examples, and has an ongoing case study which my students found very useful. In addition, the author has a great support site for this (and all his books) at

...P>From my perspective, that's a good thing for three reasons.

First, C# is a language that is in theory, Platform Independent. That means that the language is not designed to run on one specific Operating System such as Windows. In time there will be C# compilers that run on Unix, Linux, and Macs in addition to Windows. I think not 'marrying' the book to a specific Operating System or IDE is a good idea.

Secondly, because the author doesn't use Visual Studio to teach C#, my students didn't have to purchase it--all they needed to do was to download the .Net framework from Microsoft--and that's free.

Thirdly, as a computer science instructor, I can tell you I prefer my students not to use IDE's, at least in the beginning. It can take several weeks for a student to get comfortable with an IDE, and it detracts from what is really important, learning the language.

IDE or not, this book will take you from no knowledge to a complete Windows program at the end. And if you are like my students, you'll find the journey to be fun and enjoyable.

.NET Framework has forced many of us to sit down and re-learn what we thought we already new. Concepts such as OOP to include Inheritance, Method Overloading, and etc. As a VB6 guru, there was not a big push to learn what we truly needed. However, this is not true within Microsoft's .NET technology. Therefore, if you truly want to start with a solid foundation learning OOP, I highly recommend purchasing this book. With the author's classroom approach, it captures your attention from chapter to chapter; and before you know it, you will have completed the book and awaiting his more advanced copy. If you want a ground level foundation, do not hesitate to include this in your inventory.

I am taking a series of classes from "someplace" with the intention of making a carreer change. "Someplace" offered to get me from being a non-programmer to an MCSD in 8 months using Microsoft official curriculum (MOC). An ambitious undertaking to be sure.

I have found the MOC to be of very limited help. Wow, that's an understatement.

Anyway, I have been using other resources to supplement the training and this book has been the best.

The book starts with understanding the requirements of a program. From there the author walks us through the process of building a program and incorporates a lot of very practical and useful concepts. In general, the book has followed the progression of the MOC "Programming with C#". Whether by design or not, this has been very helpful.

The book is written in narrative or as a story unfolding. The reader is included in a small class learning to program. The other students in the class ask questions to the instructor (John Smiley) and in general greatly facilitate the learning process. This narrative makes it a lot easier to follow and the simple program turns out to be full of lots of very useful training opportunities.

At first, I was underwhelmed that the author had chosen to use Notepad and the SDK to create the programs. However, having finished the book and being halfway through the MOC course (which uses Visual Studio) I am glad that he does. Visual Studio tends to be expensive to get your hands on, and while it does have some VERY helpful functionality in terms of writing code, for the beginner, a lot of the stuff it does seems like it is overwhelming for the "newbie" (at least it was to me.)

Many times, I would complete similar exercises using the notpad/SDK method in 1/3rd or 1/4 the time it would take me to do it in Visual Studio. For the most part, this was because of all of the "helpful" stuff that Visual Studio was doing. Don't get me wrong, it is a great IDE, but for a newbie like me, I think Smiley's approach was better.

I have bought many other C# books and I will be doing reviews on them as I read them to supplement the material. I've also been taking video lessons from LearnVisualStudio.net.

I hope John Smiley will create a book on Visual Studio and Intermediate and Advanced C#. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it HIGHLY to anyone just getting started.

Have you ever thought you wanted to learn how to program, and bought a book on programming that didn't teach you anything? Or maybe you took a class that had a required textbook that was worthless? Did you get discouraged, and think programming just wasn't "for you"? That maybe you just didn't "get it" like those other people that seemed to have no problems learning to program? If so, then this book is for you. If more computer programming books were written like this, I KNOW there'd be a lot more programmers in the world. It's not about intelligence, it's about LEARNING STYLES. This book is more narrative than just lines of code to interpret. John Smiley talks TO the reader, not AT him. He puts you in a classroom setting where people ask questions, even DUMB questions that you yourself may have wanted to ask. And guess what? He ANSWERS the questions. If you've been stymied in one way or another from reaching a point of confidence with programming then this book is for you. I give it 5 stars because that's the most that Amazon's system will let me give it. If you don't believe me, hit the library. Then buy the book to put food on this man's table, and have this awesome book in your personal library.

If you have absolutely no programming experience, I highly recommend this book for starters. Or for those with little programming experience. The book is written in an entirely different way than the average programming book. The author brings the reader into an imaginary classroom, where dialog is exchanged between students and the teacher on how to program using C#.

Being new to programming, .NET, and C# myself, this would be the first book I would get if your interested in learning C#. The book really doesn't use Visual Studio.NET for examples, but for the most part this isn't a big deal because the book is really focused on learning foundational topics in C#. If your looking for a good book for learning Visual Studio.NET, try Effective Visual Studio.NET by Wrox. If your looking for a good starter book on C# and ASP.NET(together) try Sams TY C# Web Programming in 21 Days.

This is a great book for C# beginners like me. The book is very well written as it simulates the real class environment and answers every possible question that the beginner might have. I went to a 5-day C# training and I learned less there than I learned after reading this book. The author is a talented instructor, and I wish all computer science professors were like him. I am looking forward to an intermidiate C# book by John Smiley! Thank you, John.

If you're fairly new to programming like I am, and especially if you've tried other, drier technical volumes, you'll absolutely LOVE Professor Smiley's approach to the C# language. His gift of explaining technical material in down-to-earth, everyday terms makes this book worth at least twice what they're asking for it. By book's end, you'll have completed a respectable and fairly complex C# program, giving you a solid foundation from which to build more complex programs in the future. Plus, you'll learn a little bit about object oriented programming along the way. For the non-nerd beginner, I know of no better C# book on the market today. BUY IT NOW! (P.S. I am not John Smiley nor do I work for him or the publisher; but I am highly enthusiastic about well-written technical books like this one.)