Customer Reviews

Mastering Visual C# .NET

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I read through this book at the local bookstore and then bought it online. I agree with the other reviewers: this book is simply the best one around.

There are so many books on C# now, but a few really shine as being great. This book is one of them.

I liked this book because it can be used as both a user guide to learn C# _and_ as a reference book to C# and .NET. No other book even comes close to that goal, and the authors have done a really great job.

Another great thing about this book is that it can be used by beginners and advanced users, so if you don't know C# you can learn everything you need from this book. Even if you don't know programming, this book is written in a style that you can understand - all without talking down to the reader.

There are also topics covered in this book not covered in any other book - such as security and other advanced topics.

This is by far the best book on C# I've seen. I'm an intermediate programmer experienced with C++ and Java. I found the style of the book easy to follow. One of the things I really liked was that the book acts as both a guide and a reference to supplement the Microsoft Online reference material.

Part 1 of the book covers the details of the C# language, such as using variables and objects, baic C# programs, and compiling and running programs.

Part 2 goes into the advanced aspects of C# and .NET, like thread programming, assemblies, security, remoting, and so on.

Part 3 dives into .NET programming, such as ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Windows application programming, and building web services.

If you are familiar with OOP/C++/Java and want to pick up main C# concepts in a hurry, get this book. Although I did read Tom Archer's "Inside C#" before this one, and some tutorials on the net, I think this book deserves to be the first C# book for a beginner or an intermediate programmer. It has a decent aggregation & coherent explanantions of all the major C# topics and uses Visual Studio.NET IDE in its examples (which I think is really important for a C# book). One minor drawback is that some important topics(like Web Services and .NET Remoting) are given just a cursory treatment. But I guess, such vast topics merit devoted books just for those. Beware however, I came across 2 critical bugs - Ch 12, first page it says method signature is composed of method name,return type and parameter list (actually its just the parameter list and method name) and on page 794, chapter on ADO.NET it says to use Fill method on DataSet object to synchronize changes made to the DataSet with Database(in reality you should use Update method). It even gives an introduction to ASP.NET and ADO.NET but you have to look for other sources to learn those technologies well.

Overall, its a good book to invest your money and time in.

Update (4/6/2003): I feel it's important to modify my rating and approval of the book relative to some of the additional texts I've since read. I also applied an edit to correct a misunderstanding on my part and added some additional material. I still agree with most of my original thoughts on the book, but feel the book isn't thorough enough to be called "Mastering." I've since discovered the Applications Development in .Net books by Robert Oberg and crew (they have a very nice line of introductory and intermediate/advanced texts for both C# and VB.Net from Prentice Hall), and feel these books are superior in explaining the languages and their overall context in the .Net world. They also have somewhat more useful examples. The Price and Gunderloy book is still decent, and I still hold by my audience recommendations, but I feel an overall score of 2.5 to 3 stars is more appropriate.
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This book is reasonably well written and easy to read. It's a decent overview of both the C# language and .Net, so it's a good first book for programmers trying to understand these new technologies, but I'm not so sure I would recommend it to pure programming beginners.

As one review stated there are cases where some important concepts are not as thoroughly covered as they could be. There are also some inconsistencies and small lapses that shouldn't hurt experienced programmers, but may confuse novices. An example is the case where they discuss the difference between using the 'override' and 'new' keywords with methods; they give a good general explanation, but mention that there are exceptions. They do not, however, identify the exceptions, and this may leave more curious and experienced developers hanging. The code examples in the book are useful, but as another reviewer stated, they are often reprinted at the end of the section which results in a lot of redundant pages where additional examples would have been more welcome.

The tradeoff for the surface skimming approach is that the book's pace, for the right audience, is swift. Experienced developers, and especially JAVA or C coders, will rip through the first third of the book and get a good basic understanding of the C# syntax. The authors don't compare JAVA and C# in the way Bruce Eckels does with C++ and JAVA in his Thinking in JAVA text, which would have been a useful approach for JAVA developers, but their approach leaves the book a bit more accessible.

I was also pleased that with few exceptions the examples all compiled and ran. I've worked with some books where there were errors in the examples and this made active learning more troublesome. The exception is that in defining database access in some of the last chapters, I had to do a little more tinkering to get access rights to the SQL Server database working. I think the book would be better if it skipped the chapter on SQL and expanded the ADO.NET chapter to include security/signon and setup issues with databases with .Net objects.

It is true that the chapters in the middle and last thirds of the book probably don't also contain as much detail as those experienced in .Net and ASP might prefer, but again, the collective approach of the book gives the experienced developer new to .Net and C# a quick trip through the languange and how it integrates with .Net. One problem it has in common with a lot of programming books is that the examples are a little too simple. You will know how to build a Web service in C# with VS.Net when you are done with this book, but it won't do much and the intricacies of distributed computing aren't really deeply discussed.

Recommendations
New to programming: not recommended
Experienced programmer, but new to .Net or C#: recommended

Experienced programmer, experienced with .Net and C#: consider a reference text or advanced programming book instead

I read these reviews to decide on my books, but I also spend time reading each book a bit in the book store before my purchases. As a manager of c# programmers that had little OO exprience I thought this book was excellent. The OO chapter did an excellent job explaining the concepts. The Interface chapter made this topic simple while my other books just confused me. The examples are a bit simple but they teach the concepts very well and there are more complex topics as you progress. I thought this was an excellent beginner and intermediate book, and believe me I am very particular, I spend a lot of time selecting books.

Wow, I had no idea how good this book was before I bought it. I had read topics in other books that served to totally confuse me and this book made them very clear. Everything is built in small pieces to develop a complete understanding of the subject matter. This is my C# Bible and my be the only book I ever need on pure C#. The other thing that I personally really like is that he does not spend a lot of time on programming windows per say. I am a web developer and just needed that core C#.NET language...that this is it. (Go buy Petzold's Programming Windows with C# if you really want windows programming...you'll have so much windows it will make you sick)

Anyway, I cannot give a book a higher rating then this one. IT IS AWESOME!

After the initial $200.00 worth of Microsoft Press "Let's Print Help and Sell it". I bought this book along with it's companion "Mastering C# Database Programming".

I've had both of them for about a week and they've paid for themselves.

The Best C# books out there; trust me, I've just about bought them all.

I liked this book because it is the only one I've found that covers advanced material like security in .NET. This book is also great because it can be used by both beginners and advanced programmers, and that's very rare in most books written today.

I bought several books on C# including the O'Reilly and Wrox books, and decided to keep this Sybex book as it was the best of the bunch. This book is even better than the Microsoft Press books on C#!

As mentioned in the title of my review, this book is without a doubt the best general instruction (how-to) and reference book on Visual C# .NET that I have found anywhere. The topics are very clearly explained, the code snippets are concise enough that you aren't wading through a single project that grows as the chapters progress.

Instead, the author begins with an into to C#, and starts with the basics. I am only half-way through the book and have been very pleased with the content, its presentation, and the manner in which the author communicates.

I bought this book and some of the MS, Wrox and O'Reilly books on C#. This one is the only one worth buying, and I read all the other ones bought. This book really stands out above the rest because it covers the C# language as well as ADO.NET and ASP.NET, along with web services.

I really liked the no nonsense approach taken by the authors, and the coverage of advanced C# and .NET programming like threads, remoting and security. The book even introduces you to using and programming with SQL Server!

The other C# I own stay at home on the bookshelf. Like I said at the start of this review, this is the only book I _actually_ use at my job.