Customer Reviews

Microsoft Visual C#(TM) .NET Step by Step (Step by Step (Microsoft))

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I have not been a fan of the Step By Step series in the past. If this is the direction they are going, I may have to re-examine by own personal bias against them.

Admitedly, this is a beginner's book, rather than a book for people who have already gained quite a bit of experience in C# through the betas. But, that is not all bad.

My own personal reason for picking up this book is the large amount of time I have spent on Visual Basic .NET, as of late. The fact it was free made it worth even more to me.

My personal love of this book comes from the fact it is the first one I have sat down and read that covers more than syntax. Okay, Wrox did have a book that went beyond, but it was rushed and not as well designed for learning a new language and paradigm.

From the first chapter, you are encouraged to get into code and start developing with C#.NET from the first chapter. The book also covers a variety of types of projects. Parts 4-6 take you through Windows Forms and WebForm applications, as well as working with ADO.NET. Sweet!

The book is broken down into nice bite size chunks, each with its own projects. Overall, I wish Microsoft was still putting the ebook on the CD, as I like to carry the CD instead of the entire tome, but that is a minor knock.

There is one potential downside to the book. You can easily develop with C# using notepad. Much of the book, however, relies on Visual Studio .NET. While I don't consider this a major negative, those that are not using Visual Studio .NET will not get as much value from the book.

I am a bit reluctant to give this book 5 stars, as I, as an advanced developer, do not get as much value out of this book. However, it hits its intended target and makes a wonderful book for someone just learning C#. And, with almsot 600 pages of content, and a reasonable font size, it packs quite a punch. The fact that the layout looks rather nice and makes it easy and enjoyable to learn is an added bonus.

One of the best C# tutorials available. Also quite a nice intro to OOP as well as the Visual Studio.NET programming environment.

If you are new to programming, coming from a non-OOP language such as Visual Basic 6.0 (or previous) or even a long-time coder who needs a quick into to the C# language, you should be able to find something for you here in this book. The first half of the book teaches you the basics of the C# language and how to program using the Visual Studio.NET programming environment. The second half introduces basic Windows programming, some ASP.NET as well as ADO.NET and even XML.

Obviously, Windows programming and using the .NET framework are very complex topics and no single book can possibly cover everything, but for the newcomer, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better starting place.

I am about 85% through this book and it is great if you are looking for a comprehensive intro to .NET and C#. If you are already familiar with most of .NET and want something in-depth on a particular aspect of .NET, than you should probably look elsewhere. I attended a 1 week, $2500 class on .NET and this book is much better from my perspective. Covered most of the same topics, but in more depth than the class (although still not beyond intermediate level). The book is tutorial style which I like for the most part. So yes, you need to be in front of your computer. Remarkably, I have not had ANY problems with any of the code so far other than one difference in a diagram display which did not effect the programs operation. Now that I am about through the book, I know what I want to learn more about and have an excellent overview of .NET and C#. Just keep in mind that it is a beginning to intermediate level book.

This book is geared for the person who is either a novice programmer or is new to object oriented programming. Anyone who is migrating from another language such as C++ or Java would be better served by choosing the Microsoft Press Core Reference book. This book takes a leisurely pace through C# and Visual Studio. Each chapter introduces a concept and then takes you through a step-by-step demonstration in Visual Studio of a program using that concept. Beyond the basics of C#, the book also covers such topics and ASP.NET, ADO.NET, and web services. It includes a brief tutorial on XML as well. The book does not cover each topic in great depth and some topics are left out (I/O, for example) but for someone with little or no experience the pace and the material covered is about perfect. Overall the book is well done. The book makes it easy for the novice to learn C#. The lessons are well designed to help the reader understand the material that was just covered. The authors' pace is perfect for a self-study course and should allow you to learn the material without much struggle. If you have experience then you will probably want to look elsewhere, perhaps to the Core Reference or the O'Reilly book. You should note that this book is very much a "hands on" book so you will need a copy of Visual Studio or Visual C#.NET to make it worthwhile.

For once an MS Press step by step book has exceeded my expectations. This book does an execelent job of explaining C# from three perspectives. New to programming, C or C++ experience, VB experience. It explains the changes from the latter two and points out how this is an improvment.

As an experienced programmer, I've been able to skim chapters I already understand. There is a guide at the front that suggests chapters that I'd be interested in.

I also like the chapter format, that gives you a estimated time to complete each chapter.

I was scouring for a C# book that was going to give me as much info as I could get, without dropping the typical [money] for a computer book. This is definately the best one I found. I can refer back to it as a reference, and it touches on the other .net technologies too.

Actually, first half the book has a very nice step-by-step progression for someone starting C# (somewhat painfully slow if you have had some programming background, however). Then you had better be holding on to your seat because it jumps into some advanced topics like OO and delegates and (in my opinion) does a poor job of explaining them. I got totally confused reading this books explanation of delegates and after reading a few sentences in my other C# book (Mastering Visual C#.NET) on the subject, it made perfect sense. In fact, although this is not a bad book, I think that Mastering Visual C#.Net is much much better...maybe one of the best I have read, in fact. (and I have read most of about 15 .net books so far)

Anyway, it you like are very very gradual start then it may be worth getting for the first half, anyway...but there might be better, even for that...

EarlT777@Hotmail.com

I've been using Visual C++ 6.0 at work for the past few years and was looking for something to help me with transitioning to C# and .NET. I settled on the 2003 version of this book and was not disappointed. The title says it all really - it's a concise and tutorial-like introduction to C# programming using Visual Studio.NET. The book is very well organized with "how-to" summaries at the end of each chapter, and numerous notes/hints throughout that list the sometimes subtle differences between C++/Java and C#.

This was my first step-by-step book and I liked how the exercises were presented. In the early chapters, you are typically asked to open an existing project and make code or design modifications that demonstrate the topic at hand. This approach helps to speed things along and I didn't feel at any time that I was bogged down on any one chapter or exercise for too long. Before each exercise, I made a point of reviewing all of the application code first, including the forms code generated by Visual Studio. For example, as early as Chapter 2, I could see more or less how GUI event handlers are registered, even though I hadn't yet reached the section on WinForms or delegates.

One suggestion I do have for the authors in any future editions is to talk more about configuring your PC before doing any ADO.NET or ASP.NET programming, e.g., how to troubleshoot when things aren't working. Even though I had MSDE and IIS installed properly, I initially had problems creating the Northwind sample database, and also with creating new ASP projects in Visual Studio (VS needs to be able to connect to your IIS server first before it can create/open ASP projects). The book didn't help me much here (neither did Visual Studio's cryptic error messages) and I had to dig around on MSDN and CodeGuru to get things working.

With regards to content, there are a couple of noteworthy items. The chapter on value and reference types does a very good job of explaining the concepts using diagrams and sample code. The diagrams show you exactly what are the contents of stack versus heap memory as each line of sample code is executed. For novice programmers who have had trouble understanding reference types or concepts such as "boxing", I would recommend having a look at this chapter. Another section I liked was the sample exercise in the chapter on inheritance, which simulated a source file parser using the Visitor design pattern. The authors could have explained the program better though, by using class diagrams possibly.

Overall I am quite pleased with this book and the outcome of having gone through all of the exercises. Now it's time for me to look for something more advanced on topics such as threading, .NET remoting, GDI+, ...

I hated to see it end. Thankfully, the extra exercises on the CD gave me more great practice that made me feel I finally could write good software in Visual Studio. Each lesson covered a useful technique or feature from Windows forms, ADO.NET, even customizing DataGrids, to ASP.NET and web services. The code was clear, useful, well explained, and it worked! I found almost no erratta and didn't realized the authors were in the UK until I had finished (great editing, no idomatic expressions). I look forward to another book by Sharp and Jagger. I like the way they write and learned more from them than all four other books I have on the subject. I had no unanswered questions and was never bored. Any repetition was good practice on things you need to know cold and use, like filling a DataSet from a SqlDataAdapter or try/catch and MessageBox.Show(). Things weren't over-simplified. I believe they had me practicing good coding technique throughout, even tier separation, unlike many other books. Covering ASP.Net Forms right after Windows Forms made it easier to understand and remember the differences. First, learn the basics of C# from a reference volume (I particularly liked Petzoldt's emphasis on SCOPE) then get this book to dive into Visual Studio and learn while doing it step by step. All major features of Visual Studio .NET Pro are used and code well explained (except maybe delegates but they take volumes to explain). I expect to refer back to this book when I get stuck building my own projects. These authors raise the bar for all the others. Six stars would be more appropriate.

I'm thoroughly enjoying this book. I've been doing object-oriented programming for over seven years (Visual FoxPro) and have found the clear, intelligent and thoughtful approach to be an excellent ramp-up for someone clear on the concepts, but who needs to see how they're applied in an unfamiliar context. I have a lot of colleagues that are as excited about learning DotNet languages as I am, and I will definitely be recommending this book.

Not only does it move you into C# in a very accessible (but never patronizing way, as some introductory books will do), but the authors pass along a good dose of wisdom, pointing out practices that will work, but may be unsound from the standpoint of a professional application developer. They even mention that you can simulate C++ -style "fall-through" on a "switch" statement, but that they consider it such a horrible practice that they won't even show you how!

Great stuff.

I'm a professional programmer, but I had a hard time reading this book because it's so boring. It reads like product documentation. My biggest complaint, after getting halfway through it, is that the author will spend one sentence describing something at the start of a chapter, and then immediately dive into a case example, without finishing the explanation on what it is.

Chapter 15 reads, "An indexer is a smart array in exactly the same way that a property is a smart field. In other words, the syntax that you use for an indexer is exactly the same as the syntax you use for an array. Let's work through an example..." and thus ends the description of indexers. The rest of the chapter is on how to use them. Not what they are or why on Earth I would want to use them.

I found myself repeatedly skipping whole pages on the assumption of, Well, when I need to know how to use an this incomprehensible topic as presented in this book, I guess I'll just have to look it up later in MSDN.

Why do I care about whether VB, C++, or Java programmers will be able to adopt their way of thinking to C#? Why do I care if a Java programmer understands whether one or more keywords are gone? Is C# a derivative of Java or Visual Basic?

Zilch real-world examples that put anything in this book into proper context and usability. Starts off with complex topics and doesn't let up. Doesn't walk the reader "step by step" through anything. Found myself daydreaming a lot, having to backtrack. I kept thinking, "Who's your base class, and what does he do?" I'm being silly, but honestly, this book is a chore to read. Ugh. I kicked a field goal with it after I finished reading it.

Just to point out that I don't hold a grudge against the authors or MSPress, the VB.NET Step By Step book was excellent, and it really did start with simple topics and grew in complexity from one chapter to the next. I recommend that book as a supplement. As a replacement for this, I recommend "C# Programming for the Absolute Beginner". It doesn't read like online help the way this book does, and it's written for programmers who are new to C#, but with prior experience with another language (so it's neither insulting nor presumptuous).