Microsoft® Visual C#® .NET Step by Step--Version 2003 (Step By Step (Microsoft)) (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Teach yourself Visual C# .NET version 2003—and start developing Microsoft .NET–connected applications—one step at a time. Master language fundamentals at your own pace and use the learn-by-doing exercises to dig in and code!

Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (April 16, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735619093
• ISBN-13: 978-0735619098
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #553,390 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Guidebook, January 4, 2005

By	recombinant "dj, musician & software developer" - See all my reviews

Granted, it probably helps if you're migrating from another language (like I was - from VB), but it's an excellent text which gives you plenty of background & extra information, then takes you into step-by-step exercises to reinforce what you just read. This methodology really worked for me, and I highly recommend this book. Initially, I was concerned that it was going to be literally just step-by-step instructions on how to use C# and Visual Studio .NET, but the information between the exercises, plus additional notes and best practices really helped me out with learning the language and some potential gotchas.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good first book on visual c#, May 28, 2005

By	steve (toronto, canada) - See all my reviews

I've been using Visual C++ 6.0 at work for the past few years and was looking for something to help me with transitioning to C# and .NET. I settled on the 2003 version of this book and was not disappointed. The title says it all really - it's a concise and tutorial-like introduction to C# programming using Visual Studio.NET. The book is very well organized with "how-to" summaries at the end of each chapter, and numerous notes/hints throughout that list the sometimes subtle differences between C++/Java and C#.

This was my first step-by-step book and I liked how the exercises were presented. In the early chapters, you are typically asked to open an existing project and make code or design modifications that demonstrate the topic at hand. This approach helps to speed things along and I didn't feel at any time that I was bogged down on any one chapter or exercise for too long. Before each exercise, I made a point of reviewing all of the application code first, including the forms code generated by Visual Studio. For example, as early as Chapter 2, I could see more or less how GUI event handlers are registered, even though I hadn't yet reached the section on WinForms or delegates.

One suggestion I do have for the authors in any future editions is to talk more about configuring your PC before doing any ADO.NET or ASP.NET programming, e.g., how to troubleshoot when things aren't working. Even though I had MSDE and IIS installed properly, I initially had problems creating the Northwind sample database, and also with creating new ASP projects in Visual Studio (VS needs to be able to connect to your IIS server first before it can create/open ASP projects). The book didn't help me much here (neither did Visual Studio's cryptic error messages) and I had to dig around on MSDN and CodeGuru to get things working.

With regards to content, there are a couple of noteworthy items. The chapter on value and reference types does a very good job of explaining concepts such as "boxing" using diagrams and sample code. The diagrams show you exactly what are the contents of stack versus heap memory as each line of sample code is executed. Another section I liked was the sample exercise in the chapter on inheritance, which simulated a source file parser using the Visitor design pattern. The authors could have explained the program better though, by using class diagrams possibly.

Overall I am quite pleased with this book and the outcome of having gone through all of the exercises. Now it's time for me to look for something more advanced on topics such as threading, .NET remoting, GDI+, ...

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for learning C#, March 14, 2005

By	Juan Torres Reveron (Birmingham, Alabama USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is a great introduction to the C# language. The only drawback is that you need Visual Studio.NET to be able to complete the exercises; but then again, C# is an invention of Microsoft si it is understandable.
Some reviewers have expressed concern for it not being for beginners. Be aware that the object oriented model of programming has been an integral part of every language since the invention of C++ in the 1980's. If you are interested in non-OOP languages you can try C. If you like to understand a little more about OOP before starting this book grab Beggining C# Objects as an intro both to the language and the method.