55 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Don't rely on the information in this book., July 23, 2006
This review is from: Programming Microsoft Visual C# 2005: The Language (Paperback)
This book is CRAWLING with errors in it. The Microsoft Knowledge Base doesn't even cover many of them, either. The errors aren't just typos either. I'll give some examples of why you shouldn't waste your money on this book:
* Page 54: "Volatile Fields"
"Locks are explained in Chapter 9, Threading".
Chapter 9 in the book is "Exception Handling", and nowhere in the book is Threading mentioned or given as a topic.
* The author discusses writing an equals() method for classes and states : "Objects that are equal should have the same hash code. Therefore, equality can be based on comparing hash codes."
This is so wrong it's not funny. Two completely different objects can have the same hashcode and still not be equal. What is he thinking?
* The author writes a paragraph in the book (page 93):
"Hash codes are recyclable. When a reference is garbage collected, the hash code is returned to the available pool. The hash code is then assignable to a future instance. For this reason, you should remove dead objects from any collections."
I do not know what he means by "recyclable" or "available pool", nor what a "dead" object is. I checked the chapter on collections and GetHashCode() is not mentioned anywhere.
* Page 95, code sample is incomplete. The author left it incomplete, yet uses the example (and discusses the details he left out to prove a point -- which happens to be wrong, too). He speaks about MemberwiseClone() and how it does a bit-wise copy of all the fields (including references). This means that a cloned object will be a shallow copy and still point to the same underlying objects for all of the references. Well, he then essentially says that assigning a new string to one of the references in the original object will also change the cloned object's string. This is absurd and I really think he needs to either go back to C# 101 or pay more attention to writing books because people are spending their hard earned money on this stuff.
I seriously doubt the author is incompetent. I just think it's a matter of carelessness. Either way, I wouldn't buy this book if you are looking for accuracy and good guidance. I recommend Jesse Liberty's book (O'Reilly) over this one, however, Jesse's is a bit dated.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Adequate but full or errors, February 25, 2007
This review is from: Programming Microsoft Visual C# 2005: The Language (Paperback)
Like many other reviewers, I purchased this book alongside the MS Press 70-536 Training Kit. This book really can only be useful for an experienced C# developer who is looking to fill in any knowledge gaps concerning the language itself. Such a person would be able to spot the numerous errors and move past them without harm done. However, I could not, in good conscience, recommend this to anyone actually seeking to learn the language.
As an example, on page 21, the unary operators are described with examples for each. However, the postfix increment "++" and postfix decrement "--" operators have their examples swapped. Once again, someone already in the know wouldn't be too bothered by this and would figure it out immediately, but for others, it could result in quite a bit of confusion.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
56 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Language guide...NOT a programming reference, February 18, 2006
This review is from: Programming Microsoft Visual C# 2005: The Language (Paperback)
The title of this book "The Language" is very appropriate: it offers a very in-depth description of the C# 2.0 language and also covers related topics such as MSIL, Visual Studio 2005 (overview only) and its debugger.
The book is very extensive and every topic (read: language element) is described in extreme detail. Unfortunately this is done using very abstract terms and the entire book looks like a list of syntax definitions. This makes it very tiring to read and the massive number of senseless lines ("Instance members are inexorably linked to an instance and are accessible from the point of instantiation.") and grammar errors compund this.
If you are looking for a very comprehensive language syntax description, I highly recommend this book. If you are looking for a reference guide to help you program...look further.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
