33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pros and Cons, May 5, 2006
This review is from: Professional C# 2005 (Wrox Professional Guides) (Paperback)
PROS: I liked the book, and learned a lot from it. It is both a very broad and deep view of C# and .NET, covering more than most other books. It has good explanations of things like delegates, properties, indexers, and differences between C# and java, C++ and other languages. The section on ADO (SQL Database classes) is especially good, tho it goes pretty fast. This is a professional book, not for beginning programmers, but especially good if you know java or C++ already (I know both, so it helped even more).
Between this book and the Microsoft web site, I now have a firm understanding of the basics of C#, and a start in learning a good chunk of .NET. Much more to do on learning .NET, of course.
CONS: The problem with the book was a lack of quality control -- many more errors in the code snippets and some detailed explanations than there should have been -- all someone has to do is copy them into a program and try compiling them, and verify it at least compiles! Some were corrected in the downloadable code, but still a lot that weren't (I got tired of submitting errata reports). There were even some simple speling errors (sic) that a simple spell checker could have caught! Jeez guys, come on!
I was forced to go to the Microsoft web site and get accurate data on many occasions. Lost confidence in Wrox.
I got the impression that much of the data had started in one of the other C# books, got edited, and now there are holes, references to code and items that don't exist, etc. More a fault of the editors than the original authors.
Wrox -- put some pressure on your quality control people! These aren't romance novels, people like us actually read these things and USE THEM!!!
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57 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great reference to C# 2005, November 21, 2005
This review is from: Professional C# 2005 (Wrox Professional Guides) (Paperback)
What a great book. Since Amazon doesn't list the book's table of contents, and you're probably wanting more information about what's in it before you buy, here's the table of contents from my copy of the book:
Part I: The C# Language.
Chapter 1: .NET Architecture.
Chapter 2: C# Basics.
Chapter 3: Objects and Types.
Chapter 4: Inheritance.
Chapter 5: Operators and Casts.
Chapter 6: Delegates and Events.
Chapter 7: Memory Management and Pointers.
Chapter 8: Strings and Regular Expressions.
Chapter 9: Collections.
Chapter 10: Generics.
Chapter 11: Reflection.
Chapter 12: Errors and Exceptions.
Chapter 13: Threading.
Part II: The .NET Environment.
Chapter 14: Visual Studio 2005.
Chapter 15: Assemblies.
Chapter 16: .NET Security.
Chapter 17: Localization.
Chapter 18: Deployment.
Part III: Data.
Chapter 19: Data Access with .NET.
Chapter 20: .NET Programming with SQL Server 2005.
Chapter 21: Manipulating XML.
Chapter 22: Working with Active Directory.
Part IV: Windows Applications.
Chapter 23: Windows Forms.
Chapter 24: Viewing .NET Data.
Chapter 25: Graphics with GDI+.
Part V: Web Applications.
Chapter 26: ASP.NET Pages.
Chapter 27: ASP.NET Development.
Part VI: Communication.
Chapter 28: Web Services.
Chapter 29: .NET Remoting.
Chapter 30: Enterprise Services.
Chapter 31: Message Queuing.
Chapter 32: Future of Distributed Programming.
Part VII: Interop.
Chapter 33: COM Interoperability.
Part VIII: Windows Base Services.
Chapter 34: Manipulating Files and the Registry.
Chapter 35: Accessing the Internet.
Chapter 36: Windows Services.
Part IX: Appendices (Web Site Only).
Appendix A: Principles of Object-Oriented Programming.
Appendix B: C# for Visual Basic 6 Developers.
Appendix C: C# for Java Developers.
Appendix D: C# for C++ Developers.
Index.
I hope that helps.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
C# 2.0 IS COOL! This book is great for 2.0, November 18, 2005
This review is from: Professional C# 2005 (Wrox Professional Guides) (Paperback)
I have the 2nd edition of this book for .NET 1.0 and recently got this recent new edition focused on .NET 2.0. My big comment after reviewing this book is that C# 2.0 is dang cool! I love the new features and really am anxious to apply generics now into my applications. I give this book a big thumbs up in getting me up to speed in C# 2.0. It is a BIG book - 1540 pages and is heavy enough to leave dents in your legs. The authors do a good job of explaining C# from start to finish. There is also a tremendous amount of what I will label as 'tips and tricks' throughout. Here's my big reasons to get this book:
* It's big and covers so much from the C# world in an `applied' manner
* It covers all the core C# items and then expands out to areas that are less covered in other books - such as working with Active Directory or GDI+
* Covers working with SQL Server 2005 quite nicely
* Even covers futures such as working with WCF
Basically if you are a developer in the C# world of .NET - then this is something you would want next to your keyboard.
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