Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition: Build a Program Now! (Pro-Developer) [Paperback]

Patrice Pelland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 7, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0735625425 | ISBN-13: 978-0735625426

In this lively, eye-opening, hands-on book, all you need is a computer and the desire to learn how to program with Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition. Featuring a full edition of the software, this fun and highly visual guide walks you through a complete programming project a desktop weather-reporting application from start to finish. You ll get an introduction to the Microsoft Visual Studio® development environment and learn how to put the lightweight, easy-to-use tools in Visual C# Express Edition to work right away creating, compiling, testing, and delivering your first ready-to-use program. You ll get expert tips, coaching, and visual examples at each step of the way, along with pointers to additional learning resources.

Key Book Benefits

This dynamic, full-color, highly-visual book is designed to help novice programmers build fundamental programming skills for Windows® quickly and easily

Provides a quick-start, project-based approach!

Provides complete software for Visual C# 2008 Express Edition and all the instructions needed to understand and put those tools to work right away

Features a complete desktop application that can be easily modified and reused a great learn-by-doing example

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Patrice Pelland is a development lead at Microsoft with more than a dozen years of experience designing software. He is also an experienced mentor and an instructor of programmers at all skill levels. Patrice is the author of previous editions of this popular title: Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express Edition: Build a Program Now! and Microsoft Visual Basic® 2005 Express Edition: Build a Program Now!

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (March 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735625425
• ISBN-13: 978-0735625426
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 9.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #730,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too little telling, not enough showing, May 31, 2010

By 

James Owen Lowe (Lutherville, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition: Build a Program Now! (PRO-Developer) (Paperback)

This book spends a lot of time explaining things that doesn't need to be explained to most users who want to program (such as how to install the software), and doesn't spend enough time explaining syntax and concepts.

It tells you how to do certain things, but doesn't show you why or what you are doing. For a book that includes such basics as how to install the program, it seems to skip the basic concepts of C# construction for several chapters.

To be fair, I gave up in chapter 5, since so much of the space was devoted to step-by-steps that only lets me learn from memory exactly what they wanted me to do, and not the concepts of why. The free help channel within the program itself is better than what's in this book.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars pretty good., September 21, 2008

By 

Kenneth Barrett "Ken" (Monument, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition: Build a Program Now! (Pro-Developer) (Paperback)

A very practical approach to programming - dealing with the real nuts and bolts that you need to know if you are actually going to use the language in the real world. Not a lot of extraneous, esoteric theory, just practical information.

This is an excellent first book for learning C#. Some of the data structures such as stacks, queues, and hash tables are not covered, as are some of the more subtle nuances of the inner workings of the language are not covered. That data can be obtained in other books, and are better digested after getting a fundamental grounding in the language. It is that fundamental grounding that this book provides.

Excellent.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for all developers, December 1, 2008

By 

iMe (CO,USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition: Build a Program Now! (Pro-Developer) (Paperback)

I purchased this book more to review, rather than learn; yet I ended up learning more than I thought I would. It's a great book for anyone interested in learning C# or Visual Studio, or anyone that needs to improve their skills. Keep in mind, that if your an experienced developer, with years of industry experience, this book may be to easy for you.

For the rest, it's an easy to follow read, that makes C# fun. What makes it a really nice book is that by the time you finish the book, you will have a feeling of accomplishment, as you will have created your own applications, and will have the experience and desire to improve those applications or to build your own.

It seems one of the goals of the author is for the reader to learn beyond what the book teaches, and he encourages the reader to explore within the IDE environment; you will have the want to do so, regardless of being a novice or having some knowledge.

I must mention that there are several errors through out the book. If you have some experience, that should not stop you, you'll catch them. For those that get stuck, the author provided source code to everything on included disk.

Also, you do not have to use Visual C# 2008, I encourage that you use Visual Studio Pro 2008 if you have it; as that would give you full ability to learn further (on your own), and your creativity will be endless.