Customer Reviews

Microsoft® XNA® Game Studio 3.0: Learn Programming Now! (Pro - Developer)

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

 

 

I'm high-school teacher in Lakewood, Colorado. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, the C# language, and XNA 3.0 make for a pretty hefty learning curve when you're a late-adolescent in love with your xBox games and you want to make some yourself.

I've been using Mr. Miles book since XNA 2.0, and have found it to be just the right combination of humor, ease of learning, and correct software development norms.

I just wish other books that say they're for the beginner really were. This book is truly for the beginner.

YOU GO ROB!! You're responsible for helping a bunch of kids learn how to write C# code using VS 2008.

This book excels at what it set out to do, teach XNA to first-time programmers in a non-intimidating way. The book is padded with light commentary and jokes to keep readers from feeling overwhelmed by the material. It's a legitimate approach, and it will be an excellent fit for students in some kind of intro to game development class. It never goes beyond the surface level of learning, doesn't get deep into larger game programming concepts. It gives you the basic tools to get started with very basic game design.

Personally, I have previous experience with C# (beginner/intermediate level) and I feel like the book could have been compressed down to 50 pages of solid material (maybe as the intro chapters for a more difficult book). Thing is, the author didn't write this book for me. Again, it's for first-timers.

If you're just starting out with game development and programming, or you feel intimidated by C#/XNA, this book will ease you in to game development and give you a good (if a bit thin) foundation to build on. That's why I'm giving it 5 stars. It achieves its intended goal...delivering a gentle introduction.

If you've got any experience with game development or programming, I'd look elsewhere.

if you already know the the C# programming language, this book will not teach you anything new... you will learn much more from google-ing "XNA" or even watching a few youtube video's ( [...] )

Don't get me wrong, XNA and C# is very powerful, but this book on the subject does not do ether XNA or C# justice. On the back cover of the book it claims "3D-effects", but the book only covers 2D-effects, other then text and even that is limited. I think that any programmer that is wanting to enter into game programming, is going to want graphics, interaction, and sound, and this book does a piss poor job at it. With that said there are even error in the code in chapter 3. There are VERY IMPORTANT Classes the book should at least touch on and it does NOT, Mathhelper, Matrix, and Model. I will be returning this book today, it is not worth the paper it is printed on.

The book is GOOD if you know nothing. It will teach you how to make a game, and that is a good feeling! It doesn't do a very good job in teaching you C#. It gives just enough code to allow you to accomplish tasks(vs understanding what exactly the code does). I did learn XNA from this book however, the basics at least. I will give it some major credit in regard to Object Oriented Programming. Never until I performed the tasks in this book did I fully understand OOP. So many books explain OOP but don't let you put it into practice into a real life situation. It made so much sense to me because when you are programming objects in a game, they are actually objects. Easy for the mind to visualize. For instance, ObjectPaddle, ObjectBall. Whereas in other books like Wrox Jack Purdum C# 3.0 he tries to teach you OOP by having you create a "get the leap year class", and IMO that is the most ridiculous thing to introduce to a new programmer. Looks like the best XNA book out there so far for beginners. I recommend.

This book is great for C# and XNA novice. I am new to the arena of game programming, this book helps me a lot. Everything is explained in details from a C# and XNA perspective, which is a plus as I am doing this on my own. If you already have years of game programming experiences using an OOP language, I would recommend you pick an advance book. I think the author did a pretty good job. Each chapter is built on materials from the previous one and the questions at the end of each chapter are very valuable.

My daughter needed this for college and it proved to be just what she needed and half the price the college book stores were offering it.