Sams Teach Yourself C# in 21 Days (Paperback)

~ Bradley L. Jones (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

NET and one of its programming languages, C#, are slowly becoming more popular. Learn To Program teaches C# to beginners with no programming experience, moving through the process of developing a real-world application as a class project. From ascertaining user needs through auditing results, it demonstrates application development. In Chapter 1, the author shows how to design and build on familiar concepts rather than jump into coding basic programs. Allowing readers to simulate the classroom experience and learn more naturally, Learn To Program is recommended where C and C++ titles circulate. Teach Yourself is a more traditional self-study guide for beginners with some programming experience. It opens with a description of C#'s attributes and a demonstration of writing and compiling a basic "Hello, World!" program, before building up to more advanced topics. Chapter Q&As, quizzes, and exercises and weekly reviews aid understanding, and useful appendixes contain keywords, command-line compiler flags, and number systems. For medium and larger libraries. More thoroughly serving intermediate programmers, Complete Reference is the only one of these three to ask readers to purchase Visual Studio .NET. Appendixes address XML comments and robotics, and example source code is available online. For larger libraries.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

This book will take you, step by step, through learning C#, the computer industry's newest and most productive language. This complete guide covers topics from basic program construction to intermediate level application engineering. Following "21 days" formula, this book is a three week intensive course for the beginning programmer who wishes to get started with this exiting new coding standard. The comprehensive lesson plan will enable the reader to understand, design and build applications that are compatible with the new Microsoft .net framework.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 784 pages
• Publisher: Sams; 2 edition (October 29, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672320711
• ISBN-13: 978-0672320712
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #239,519 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Introduction To C#!, November 9, 2001

By	Bill Hatfield "Unabridged Audio Lover" (Indianapolis, IN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Focus of this book is on the language itself - It doesn't get side-tracked talking about Visual Studio and .NET in general, like many C# books. It is written in a clear, friendly tone and the concepts and definitions are easy to understand. The organization is also well thought-out. Like all 21 Days books, it is divided into 3 weeks of 7 days (chapters) each. In this book, Week 1 covers language basics, like using the compiler, variables, operators, control statements and an introduction to classes and methods. Week 2 goes into more intermediate language topics like enumerators, arrays, exception handling, inheritance, interfaces and delegates. Finally, Week 3 introduces a some advanced C# topics like operator overloading and reflection as well as demonstrating how C# fits with the rest of the .NET world, specifically, the .NET Framework, Windows Forms, Web Services and Web Forms.

One caveat: If you don't have a lot of programming experience, the first couple of days cover conceptual topics that may be a little confusing. Don't let that trip you up. Just skim over them ignoring anything you don't understand and head to Day 3. That where the real meat of the programming topics begin and from there it starts at the beginning and builds on itself, as you'd expect.

I particularly liked the Week In Review sections that provided extended examples (often several hundred lines of code) that demonstrate the concepts covered in the previous week. Cross-references make it easy to look up anything that is unfamiliar. This really helps pull together the concepts and helps you understand how to apply them to real-world code.

Overall a great tutorial that doesn't skip around or backtrack like so many computer books do. The organization also makes it a good reference for looking things up after you learn C#.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All the C# that you need to get started, November 3, 2001

By	Charles Ashbacher "([e-mail])" (Marion, Iowa United States([e-mail])) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

I have heard much about C# (pronounced C-sharp) over the last year, ranging from the bitter to the laudatory. In reading other books about the language, I was unable to formulate an opinion regarding the impact it will have. Well, after reading this book, it is clear that C# will have a major impact, and in this restricted job market, it is an excellent career move to learn how to use it. For years, I have heard C++ referred to as a "safer C", which is of course nonsense. In my experience, the sheer size of C++ makes it more, not less dangerous than C. However, in my opinion, there is no question that C# is a safer C. It retains some of the more attractive features of C++, such as operator overloading, yet the more dangerous concepts such as memory management and multiple inheritance are eliminated.
Before reading this book, I had some experience with C# and was looking for a text to use in the corporate training classes that I am creating. My search has ended. The lessons follow the traditional sequence of background, variables, operators, control structures and classes before moving on to the advanced topics. This is the best way to learn a new language, as nothing complicates education more than being exposed to topics without suitable background information.
The lessons are clear, concise and illustrate no more than the points to be made. Some argue that large projects built one segment at a time are the way to learn a language. I could not disagree more. Beginners need short, specific lessons that illustrate only a few topics. Large projects tend to overwhelm them to the point that the frustration level increases, which has a negative, cascading effect on their understanding.
This is a book for beginners, easily handled by anyone with some knowledge of C++ or Java. Those with no other programming experience can still understand it, but must be patient and work through all of the examples.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Hits The Major Topics, February 28, 2003

By	Jeff Damukaitis (McKinney, TX USA) - See all my reviews

I have thoroughly enjoyed the book and its ability to bring one up to speed with C#. He covers some very basic concepts such as structures, classes, indexers, and advanced topics such as delegates. All the constructs that one needs in order to put the language to work are detailed.

If you are looking for a quick, down and dirty book to jump start your knowledge of the language I would rate the book 5 stars.

One of the biggest challenges with OO languages is not using a procedural style when writing code. The author no doubt has a handle on the C# language. But I don't think he has a handle on OO. As the author mentions, everything in C# is class. With this in mind, I would expect to see good class design throughout the book.

My criticism, which I hope is taken with a grain of salt, is that the examples which wrap up a week's lesson are too procedural. They are spaghetti code that I personally would re-factor before publishing. There is a Main method that is hundreds of lines long with nested do's nested in if's nested in do's that are nested in if's... get the picture?

If this seems like harsh criticism, I apologize. I thought twice about writing this review until I hit is Black Jack program on about page 400.

Respectfully,
A fellow techie