Customer Reviews

Professional C# (Programmer to Programmer)

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

 

 

I am an experienced C/C++ programmer, and I'm moderately familiar with writing windows applications in Visual C++ 6.0, having developed a few simple dialog-based apps in the past. Given this background, Professional C# is an excellent introduction to using the .NET framework and developing windows applications in C#. Unlike some other C# books, it doesn't waste much time with the very basics of programming, it gets right to the point and covers the C# language itself with a good balance of detail and speed, offering useful comparisons between C# and other languages such as VB and C++. That said, I wouldn't recommend this book for beginning programmers.

I originally thought that C# was "just a new type of C++", but once you try to learn the fundamentals of C# you realize that C# by itself is actually a just small part of the learning process. Rather, C# is intimately tied to microsoft's .NET framework, and learning the overall concepts of .NET is the real challenge. This book covers a LOT of material since C# and .NET encompass a surprisingly large set of concepts. Overall, I am somewhat amazed and very impressed at how much detailed and well-written information is crammed into this book.

A huge weakness of this book is the incredible number of errors, which range from simple typos, to repeated words, to more serious omissions and coding errors. Don't take my word for it -- if you look at the errata page on the Wrox Press website, there are currently 200 publisher-confirmed clarifications and errors listed for this book! (This number is probably an underestimate, IMO.) It also took me by surprise that the appendices are not included in the book, but are available as PDFs on the website. At first I thought the missing appendices were the biggest error yet, but apparently this was done on purpose. This becomes even more confusing because this results in ~200 skipped pages in the book, it jumps from page 1135 to 1307, and yet there are many index items that point to pages in that range (these are italicized). Overall, the missing pages cheapen the book and seem more like a publishing blunder rather than something that was planned from the start.

Apparently this book is available in downloadable form for ~$30 (?) as a PDF, I wonder if some/all of the errors have been corrected and the appendices are included in the electronic version.

I have been using this book for 1 month now, I found it ok the first read-through, but when I needed to go deeper I ended up searching Google for the answers. Four examples:
- when reading about abstract classes (p.115), it was not explicitly stated that they can contain implementation code. Rather drop the section, then do an uncomplete job.
- when reading about ApplicationDomains (p.341), I was missing a justification for them. When would you (in practice) want to use that functionality (rarely, I think)?
- when reading about Remoting and events (p.499), I was missing a comparison to implementing call-back using distributed objects (Corba/DCOM-style), or by using COM+ LCE.
- I was unsuccessful in getting regsvcs.exe to register my COM+ LCE topic, reading about Enterprise services (p.999) did not help.

Since this Wrox series is programmer-to-programmer, I feel that more tips on using the technology is needed, rather than a reference-like explanation of it, a focus on solving real problems. E.g. by discussing together distributed objects, events over remoting and COM+ LCE, instead of doing so seperately. As a comparison, Rod Johnson's book "Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development" is an excellent example of how I would like a programmer-to-programmer book to be.

To be fair, I have had lots of use for this book, it just did not fulfil all my expectations.

I am fine with the book's overview of C#, but quite disgruntled with its treatment of .NET details. I consulted the tome on three issues - database access, Windows Forms, and file read/writes - and in each case came away with no answers to a few basic, bread-and-butter questions. (If I had to rate coverage of the three topics, the grades would be B-, F and C). There has to be a better book.

Do not buy this book if you are just learning to program. It does not cover good programming practices and syntaxes such as: for, while etc.
That said.
I have a lot of programming books, and this one is above average.
If you are experienced programmer this is good introduction to C#. Also it could serve as a good reference once you get going.
Authors are a bit Microsoft centric but this is C# and it is Microsoft product.
I used this book to work on my first C# project and it was very helpful.

So if you are experienced C++ or Java programmer and looking to get into C# this book is a buy.
Good luck learning.

C# is still a relatively new language. But here Wiley/Wrox is already on the third iteration of this book! Very up to date, with the latest C# capabilities. Just as importantly, the book has extensive coverage of how C# integrates into .NET. Specifically including how to make Microsoft Windows Forms, and how to make dynamic web pages by combining C# with ASP.NET's components. Also of interest to some of you will be the sections showing how to use C# to connect to a SQL engine, like Microsoft's SQL Server.

In fact, one key message of the book is that C# derives a lot of its value from being tied into .NET and its associated family of packages. The book has over a thousand pages of details, but this take home idea concisely conveys much of the authors' intent.

As the side note, the C# Collections include what Microsoft calls Dictionaries. As the authors explain, this is a data structure that is more generally known as a hash table or map. [Cf. Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming", vol 3.] Yes, there is a .NET class called Hashtable. But you might think that in the interests of conforming with a straightforward industry usage, Microsoft might have dropped "Dictionaries".

This book did have understandable information and was a help to me when I first got it. However, it is way too long (and sometimes using more words than necessary to explain a thing can make it harder to understand.) Also, some of the things it said just aren't quite correct.

When this book first come out, there were NO good books on C# and the .NET framework, therefore I was glad I brought it as it is not the worse book I have read. However there are now lot better books on the market.

It is what you would expect from a book that was written by a LOT of different people in a very short length of time before anyone had any real file experience of the .NET platform.

I was disappointed for several reasons, especially since this book is labeled as being part of the "Programmer to Programmer" series:

1> Overly long with trite examples covering up the real essence. They often take several pages to convey an idea which, assuming the reader is an experienced programmer, should only take a few sentences.

2> That this is a collective effort shows. Some chapters are half-way decent, others are rather poor.

3> No help for the programmer on how to leverage existing code in C# .NET modules.

4> Very little on how things work, or why they are the way they are. This makes remembering the quirks of the language / framework rather difficult.

This book is not really all that advanced like the title implies.

Make no mistake, this book has loads of content, pretty much everything you need to get started with C#. I feel confident that any programmer at least familiar with programming can pick this book up and gain some knowledge. Some topics, such a delegates get good treatment offering loads of samples that will help those that can stay awake.

Staying awake? yeah, that brings me to my next point. This book is like a super well-done porterhouse steak... yeah, that's right. What I mean is, the substance is good, ya know, but holy cow is it dry and tough to chew and digest! I think I can figure this out... there are 6 authors(!) I think they got together and said "Since we need to be consistent, instead of offering personality we will make this book completely dry and BORING read". I have delved into this book whilst completely up and rearin' to go... for about 35-40 mins, after which my eyelids start to droop and I start to just glance the words instead of absorb their meaning.

Overall this book is still pretty good. I wish I could give half-stars because this book is more like 3.5/5 There are at least two good uses... first it's good reference material and second, if you're having trouble sleepin' then you got a handy sleep-aid.

This is the best introduction to C# that I could find, for an experienced programmer. It is filled with style hints and useful "tricks". BUT - as a reference it is less useful. Major topics, such as static constructors, don't show up in the index. A good index is so IMPORTANT!