Sams Teach Yourself the C# Language in 21 Days (Paperback)

~ Bradley L. Jones (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

In just 21 days readers will learn how to use the key features of the C# programming language—not only the commands, but how to create entire programs using them within a few simple chapters. This book is designed to teach C# from the ground up—each lesson is built to supplement the chapter before to provide a fully rounded understanding of the C# language. Sams Teach Yourself the C# Language in 21 Days is the only book on the market that takes C# out of the Microsoft Visual Studio and teaches it as a platform-independent language—letting readers program for Windows, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X. Additional coverage added from the first edition: more and better Windows Forms information, database access, XML, types, runs, appendix for Visual C++ .NET users, plus much more. This book also includes a CD-ROM full of third-party editor software and sample code, making it an easy-to-use, all-in-one package.

From the Back Cover

In just 21 days readers will learn how to use the key features of the C# programming language-not only the commands, but how to create entire programs using them within a few simple chapters. This book is designed to teach C# from the ground up-each lesson is built to supplement the chapter before to provide a fully rounded understanding of the C# language. Sams Teach Yourself the C# Language in 21 Days is the only book on the market that takes C# out of the Microsoft Visual Studio and teaches it as a platform-independent language-letting readers program for Windows, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X. Additional coverage added from the first edition: more and better Windows Forms information, database access, XML, types, runs, appendix for Visual C++ .NET users, plus much more. This book also includes a CD-ROM full of third-party editor software and sample code, making it an easy-to-use, all-in-one package.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 816 pages
• Publisher: Sams (July 31, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672325462
• ISBN-13: 978-0672325465
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #600,611 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reads well and is a bargain at $35, September 10, 2003

By	Webmaster At CodeGuru.com (Codeguru.com) - See all my reviews

Review by Aaron J. Young for CodeGuru.com:

If you're new to programming or have little experience, Teach Yourself C# is a great beginner's book. With it's course-like layout, the material is split into 3 weeks of 7 lessons/days, each covering a new but related topic, allowing the reader to pace him or herself and actually absorb what's being read without becoming overwhelmed by new concepts as is the case with many other "tutorial" books.

Teach Yourself C# in 21 Days covers all the topics needed to get you going in C#. You learn, step-by-step, the development lifecycle, programming fundamentals; like structure and program flow, statements, expressions and storage types. Object orientated design concepts are covered in sufficient detail, like inheritance, polymorphism and encapsulation. This includes coverage of the most common .NET Classes such as the Math routines, Files and Streams.

Each day ends with a summary, followed by a Q and A section where the author attempts to answer some common questions on the covered subjects, this is then followed by a Workshop consisting of a quiz and exercises designed to reinforce what has just been learnt. There are also plenty of code listings through out the book, including several "Type and Run" listings, implementing the discussed materials making it easy to follow and understand what's being taught.

It's worth mentioning that this book doesn't just stop at covering the basics of C#, it also covers ADO.NET and even designing Web Services and ASP.NET pages to a point where you can actually get something up and running and feel comfortable about how it was done.

The book is aimed at beginning to intermediate programmers, if you're in the intermediate range, but new to .NET, you'll find weeks 2 and 3 the most interesting, week 1, which is peppered with programming fundamentals does a fantastic job of preparing you for what's to come in the other 2 weeks.

Overall Teach Yourself C# in 21 Days is a must for those starting out on the .NET path, it gives you a very thorough understanding of the core language and brings you to a point where you'll be developing meaningful applications almost immediately.

A CD-ROM comes with the book and contains all the code listings organized by day as well as other tools and utilities, like the .NET framework v1.1/SDK, "SharpDevelop" - a free, open source, development environment for .NET and "Mono" - an open source implementation of the .NET framework for Linux.

There's so much useful information crammed into this book and yet it's done in a format that won't leave you scratching your head, it reads well and is a bargain at $35 - highly recommended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll read it cover to cover and keep it for reference, February 17, 2005

By	Alejandro Ramirez "Photographer" (Kirkland, WA) - See all my reviews

This book was awesome! I just finished reading it today and I am amazed of how much I learned.

I disagree with the comment that rates it bad for not talking enough about Visual Studio.... There are good books about "Visual C#" which target this audience, however the best developers are those who learn how to build software from scratch without fancy tools.

Trust me, before this, I had no idea what was all the code Visual Studio (and even SharpDevelop) generated by default.

Recommended path:
I read 1 chapter a day; then took the chapter quiz, and did all the exercises.

Also play with the "Type and Run's", they are a lot of fun!

I am now writing my own C# applications (Console, Windows-based, Web, and even for my Pocket PC).

Excellent book, great job Brad Jones!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well written, January 9, 2007

By	Justin Armstrong "Programmer" (KS USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is a great book for beginners. If you happen to be a programmer the first couple of chapters are a review but the later chapters make up for this. I would have preferred a little more about creating windows applications but this is still a great book. I recommend this book.