Customer Reviews

Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Step by Step

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I got this book because I wanted to learn Visual Studio 2008 and C# at the same time. It has certainly done the trick. I am currently at page 449, and I am amazed at how much information John Sharp has put in book. Even more amazing is that his teaching technique of a brief overview, and explaining while doing examples is surprisingly effective. If you are a Pro Developer familiar with C++ or java, then this book is probably not going to teach you anything interesting till part 4. I am very please and recommend to any novice who wants to learn.

After trying to pickup programming again several times (after not doing well in the few undergrad classes I took years ago), I've just completed the rough-design/implementation of my first c# application after reading through 9 chapters in this book.

John Sharp's book is laid out in fairly concise chapters, dealing with two or three concepts at a time. The text is clearly written, and has been fairly easy for me to understand.

The only exception (and the reason for 4/5) was the discussion of private data structures in objects. He stated that the this data is available to the class, but only implied that meant every instantiation of the class can access any other instantiation's private data. A friend who's a programmer clarified the matter, and made it sound like I was misreading it, but for a "beginners guide," I think such a point should be spelt out a bit better.

Great book: well laid out, easy to read, great examples (in the book and the code is on the CD).

This book is definately geared for beginners with no programming experience, which is fine. There are a few typo's but nothing to panic about. More importantly, there is little to keep you entertained and motivated to read it. An example, of the dryness is on page 241: Interface Restrictions...a bunch of "You-can-do-this-but-not thats". I am sure they are important points, but I think they are misplaced or better learned as you go along with each thing. I'm reading it and thinking "oh yeah, I'm going to remember all that." Nevertheless, if you can persist through the book, you will learn a lot and have a good foundation. But I recommend you buy "Head First C#" instead of this book.

And I don't just mean a person whose last name is Sharp! :-) Although each chapter is ostensibly about some particular C# programming construct, a reader would learn more than just C# syntax from this book. By the time one finishes reading this book, one would also have learned enough about useful .Net frameworks such as Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation and LINQ. Kudos to the author for pulling this off!!

unlike most books that may seem more entertaining-- this book makes you use c# for the common tasks you actually will be doing. The plan is that you program along with the author and learn "step by step" how to build many different essential programming building blocks using different net features. The section on wpf programming is wonderful'

Hi,
I have to admit I was disappointed with this book.

Part of the problem was confusion as to target audience.

In the first console applications your hand is held while every mouse click and keystroke needed is fed to you. Midway through the book you're working on esoteric classes called binary trees. In a scant 300 pages you've supposedly gone from absolute beginner to a savvy developer who would know how an advanced recursive algorithm operates so well that virtually no explanation is needed.

And ironically, despite the sudden inclusion of advanced CompSci concepts midway through the book, most of the time the author is churning out one trivial example after the next. Yes I recognize that small programs are useful in illustrating basic ideas. But small programs are boring. And the more you do the more you feel like sawing off your hand so you don't have to do another one. It's like being promised a meal and being handed one crumb after another... just imagine it's an actual meal!

A good counterexample is the book 'Beginning Visual Basic 6 Database Programming'. In this book the author (John Connell) actually walks you through the construction of a usable, well-built database application all the while illustrating the ideas. This is so much more interesting and allows you to actually see why the given programming techniques are used.

Is there useful information in the book? Yes. And at the least all of the examples work properly, as written. I bumped it up a point to three stars for this reason. The right reader might find this to be a good choice. Personally I found it painful and am still looking for a good book on C#.

Jeff

Coming from a background of MySql, I was interested in learning C# to help me make Gui based databases.

I found this book to be very well written. It was so well done that even a newbie can learn and make programs.

The exercises in this book are great because they are mind stimulating and force you to think, which in the end help you retain the knowledge.

I highly recommend this book if you are new to C# and want to learn at a rapid pace.

No fillers, no BS. This is the kind of book which writers of computer books must emulate ( Computer books are notorious for errata and poor authorship)

I congratulate Mr Sharp on an outstanding work.

Money well spent.

M Khan

This is one of the better tech books I have read. Very concise, easy to follow, logically assembled, and progresses at a reasonable rate. If you are new to C#, then I highly recommend this book. If you are new to ASP.NET and are thinking about using C#, then I would also recommend this book.

After laying the foundations of programming and introducing the standard lexicon, the book then delves deeper into the features of C#. The chapters are grouped together in a way that provides several starting points depending on your level of programming experience. Finally, the reader is introduced to databinding and working with databases (including LINQ), then finally web development with ASP.NET. Talk about comprehensive. This is a superb starting point if you are new to C#, or even programming in general.

I'm learning C# and Visual Studio 2008. I have limited (circa 1992) C programming experience, so I wanted to jump back in and see what C# was all about.

This is a good book for beginners, yet is is very comprehensive. The book sometimes requires significant focus, but I'm not reading it for entertainment. I'm reading it to learn C#.

I am an experienced procedural programmer who recently had to build a moderately complex application fast with C#. So I wanted a book that explained the basics clearly, yet wasn't trying to 'dumb' it down.

OO concepts such as inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism et al are new to me and I have found texts vary in how clearly they explain these concepts.

When I was looking at this book, I compared it to texts from publishers including SAMS, Dummies & O'Reilly (including Head First). I chose this guide because it explains things clearly and concisely for people who are new to C# but who are not new to programming. It also uses simple, easy to understand examples to demonstrate the concepts, yet it is not so basic as to be useless once you have obtained fundamental experience (as I found some '24 hour' type guides to be). The layout and use of white space on the page doesnt clutter my brain when I flick through, unlike some guides which seem to have so much info on each page in different formats you cant readily get a feel for whats important on that page.

However, it is not a 'cook book' type manual. Nor do I think it will help someone who needs to implement an advanced concept, but to be fair, its not trying to be an advanced text. It is literally, a step by step tutorial type manual. Yet each chapter is quite well contained, so I dont think you have to work through each chapter in strict sequence.