Customer Reviews

C# and the .NET Platform, Second Edition

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

 

 

I got this book a while ago (when I was a Java developer) but never really read much of it until I got my latest contracting job - which primarily involved c#/.net as well as some COM interoperability. For the longest time I never understood why I kept getting frustrated whenever I read this thing. It finally hit me - the book is somewhat of an anomoly. On one hand, it misses some major areas of .net functionality (doesn't even cover xml document creation nor COM interoperability) and on the other hand it goes into excrutiating detail on other points. A lot of times he will start a topic off by going into a lot of detail - but then will admit that he is explaining something very obscure that 99% of people may never need to know. My question is - then why cover it? Cut out some of this obscure stuff and put in some more of the topics that most people would encounter. Although I have painted a negative picture so far, there are some areas where this book really shines. I am finding that as I progress from being an intermediate to advanced c#/.net developer I am starting to appreciate this book more.
In summary, I would recommend this only as a 2nd or 3rd book to your c#/.net collection - there are too many holes in the text for it to be considered a primary text (I personally fell in love with Wrox's Professional C# - 2nd ed).

This book is not for beginner programers. It is excelent for people coming from VB, C++ or Java. It gives you a solid base on the .Net framework as well as the C# language touching both at the same time but in a coherent manner. Of the more specific subjects touch in the book the one on Data Access is ourstanding. It is also a great book to do from start to finish as the layout of the chapters favor this. You may want to supplent this book with a book for specifics about web technologies (I can recommend Programming Microsoft.Net by Jeff Prosise) and one dealing with data access (Microsoft ADO.NET Core Reference by David Sceppa is a good choice).

First, I would like to thank the Author, Andrew Troelsen for writing such an excellent book on C#.
I have read several books on C#, but this book I am reading word by word, sentence by sentence. I liked the way author has introduce new keywords/concept by enhancing the existing code and then explaing the facts about the code (Why and How). The Author has taken a full advantage of his experience in teaching. He has structured this book accordingly.

The author has mentioned, this book is for the developer who already has some expousre to modern object language, but I feel this book can help beginners who wants to learn C# and .NET technology.

If you want to learn more about C# or enhance your existing knowledge, this is the book. I highly recommend this book.

Andrew Troelsen's C# book is a readable, well-organized introduction to programming in C#. The content is interesting, and covers a useful range of topics, but several of the chapters leave you wanting more detail, such as the chapters on ADO.NET and XML Web services. Despite its thickness, this really is an introductory book because it gets into just enough detail to get you acquainted with a topic, but not enough detail to give you a deep understanding of the topic.

This book is best suited for people who want conceptual discussions and full sentence explanations, and for people who want a more gentle introduction to C#. If you are a more experienced developer and are looking for more of a reference text then this is not the book for you. In this case, I would recommend G. Palmer's "C# Programmer's Reference" (Wrox Press) (or reference the C# language specification itself).

I am giving this book 3 stars for three reasons. One, the level of detail was good, but not spectacular, and many of the chapters left me wanting to know more. Two, I didn't get a strong feeling for the ".NET Platform" aspect of the book. Certainly, the book covers a range of .NET framework classes, but you don't really get a good feel for how everything fits together, because the book covers so many topics. Finally, many of the code samples are presented in the text as incomplete snippets, taken out of context. For example, many of the code snippets are missing the "using" (imports) statement that tells you which .NET Framework class it uses. Since the book is about the ".NET platform" I would have expected more attention to this detail in the code examples. The other drawback is you can't copy them into a project as you read along because they are out of context.

In summary, this book is a very good introduction to C#, but is not a great reference book, and will leave most intermediate (and above) developers wanting more.

Weeding through the massive number of C#/.NET books on the market, I found that many are too bulked out with long code listings and screen shots, don't have enough focus on higher level architectural issues, or are written in a dry, unreadable manner.

_C# and the .NET Platform_ turned out to be exactly the book I was looking for. Excellent balance of architectural background with tight, exact code examples that go straight to the point. Troelsen's conversational writing style makes this book an easy read. I found it to be very well-organized, with topics that built upon each other nicely.

I also appreciated the presence of comparisons throughout the book of C#/.NET features to C(++) and Visual Basic 6 features. This really assisted me in bridging the gap between my previous coding experience and the .NET world.

All in all, a very enjoyable read. I would highly recommend this book to any experienced programmer who is ready to learn C# and .NET.

I've been purchasing books written by Andrew for a number of years. His writing style, examples, and way of explanations, IMHO, are on par with Dino Esposito, Nathan Wahlin, and other well known authors. This book is particularly well suited as a training book for the novice programmer (If read front to end) and as a reference for experience programmers. The only topics I missed are no-touch deployment applications and smart phone applications which are relatively new and may be slightly off-topic for this book. However, if Andrew is writing a revision to this book and includes these and newer topic such as generics I'd LOVE to proof it :) hint hint... Seriously, if you are seeking a good book on C# that covers all the basics of the language and .NET framework, moves into more advanced use of C#, this is the book.

I've not finished reading it, yet, but the more I read the better I like it. The author seems to possess a uncanny ability to lay out and explain complex materials in such well-organized and logical ways that made them easier to understand. A good example would be chapter 12 on .NET remoting, which I just finshed reading, though the coverage is not as deep as those found in the books by Don Box and Jeffrey Richter.

In the early part of the book on the C# language, the author often refers to and compares C# with VB .NET, which is unnecessary and distracting. VB .NET gets less mentioning later as he moves on to explain how to use C# on the .NET platform.

This book is the best book I've purchased on the subject of .Net. I've been using .Net since the pre-release version and have a few books sitting on my shelf, but none of them are as indepth as this book. Troelson did a fantantic job making the chapters easy to read and full of detail at the same time. His examples cover what they need to cover and do not waste your time with uneeded, off-topic lines of code. I have never learned some much from one book as I did by reading this one.

Hmm..I am a teacher who teach programming language. This book is really a great book, but "It's not for begginer".

I think it's great because ,
1. Andrew describe the technology which is "under the hood", and this make the book huge but details.
2. It always explain everything using the CIL(Intermediate Language), It's good for me. Every technology he talk about can convince me .A lot of C# book are just teach to "for , if , while...even OO inheritance, polymorphism...",I am tired about read that kind of book. It's enogh, no deeply talk about C# and .net except this one.

3. Ok, That must admit that this book is a little complex and hard in reading especially reader who don't have programming experince . It's better be a second book for you , or maybe third ....


On my comment, I suggest that If you are already familiar of some OO Programming language, like Java or C++ or VB.Net. Otherwise, it's better if you already know COM , and some popular popular technologies .

Enjoy this book. by the way, it's more than 1100+ pages.(really huge for me), you may need more patient.

This book was the first C#/.NET book that I ever got. My first impression of it was not very good, but after i got over the initial learning curve, I was hooked. Now i use this book to look upeverything about C# and .NET only if I don't find it in here do I look somewhere else.

I don't, however, recommend this book to an absolute beginner. This is more of a intermediate level book.