A Programmer's Introduction to C# (Second Edition) [Paperback]

Eric Gunnerson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

<p>This comprehensive reference to the C# language is designed to help you get up to speed on C#. Author Eric Gunnerson, a developer on Microsoft's C# design team, has logged many hours writing and testing C# code. Thus, he is uniquely poised to effectively coach you on using the language. And you will come to understand how C# fits into Microsoft's .NET Framework. <p>

Gunnerson provides the ideal foundation for you to springboard into a C# knowledge base. Core topics include C# basic statements and flow of execution, classes, interfaces, expressions, arrays, enums, interoperability, exception handling, and delegates and events. The final section of the book will enlighten you on the history of C# and compare it to other widely-used programming languages. New features to this second edition include GUI application development using Windows Forms, and advanced topics like threading and execution-time code generation.

About the Author

Eric Gunnerson is a software design engineer in Microsoft’s Visual C++ QA group and a member of the C# design team. In his professional career, he has worked primarily on database products and tools, and is proud that nearly half the companies he has worked for remain in business.

Product Details

• Paperback: 540 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 2nd edition (June 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893115623
• ISBN-13: 978-1893115620
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #925,320 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Standard, October 26, 2001

By	BCM (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Programmer's Introduction to C# (Second Edition) (Paperback)

I may have the dubious distinction of having read every published book on C# from cover to cover (well, almost). That said, this book was one of the first I encountered when I started learning C# (in its first edition, of course), and I still return to it several times weekly in its second edition (usually to clarify an exposition by another author).

For my money, this is as good as writing gets when the subject is THE LANGUAGE, PERIOD. The writing style is lean, focused, and rigorously accurate. While you might not take it to bed with you, you'll turn to it over and over when you're actively stuck on a concept and want to get it right and OWN IT.

A careful reader could gain all the confidence they need by reading this book first, and then Troelsen's *C# and the .NET Platform* (also an Apress book; no, I don't work for them). That's not to say that there aren't other gems out there (including Liberty (O'Reilly; download the latest version of the code!) and Robinson et al. (WROX; generally excellent, but some chapters are SO BAD, and the typos are EVERYWHERE). But if you have a limited budget and can stay focused, Gunnerson and Troelson (in that order) are all you need.

25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book on a great language, October 4, 2000

By	work_in_redmond (Redmond, Washington USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Programmer's Introduction to C# (Paperback)

Gunnerson's on the C# design team and know the language as well as anybody - and his experience shows in this really really nice book. This isn't a "quickie book" which is a rehashed white paper, like the book by Wille from Sams! At this stage it is hard to imagine a better book on C#.

What about C# itself? First off you can get the language free as part of the .NET SDK from Microsoft's MSDN web site, it's a command line interpretor like the one in the JDK. Then use your favorite editor to create C# code.

Next, although C# certainly bears a family resemblence to Java it has some truly unique and exciting features that make it the best language yet. For example, it is the first language in the C/C++ family to handle versioning. (For experts the fragile base class problem is gone.) There's also cool stuff like automatic conversion of value types to objects and back again and little things like == doing what it should for strings.

All in all this is a great book that I highly recommend.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very interesting, somewhat unusual tutorial, September 3, 2001

By	"asquare_from_flatland" - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Programmer's Introduction to C# (Second Edition) (Paperback)

While not the best tutorial out there for intermediate level programmers with a C++ or Java background (Liberty's book is better as a pure tutorial), this book is much better at explaining style and C# idioms than Liberty. I bought both books and am glad I did.

Gunnerson is very clear at what is good C# style and what is not and why you should choose one idiom rather than another. Also, unlike Liberty's book, Gunnerson leads you through the process involved in developing (including adding multithreading) a serious application where Liberty's samples are much smaller and much less interesting.

The downside is the order Gunnerson chose for his topics is strange whereas Liberty 's order is much more straightforward and traditional and I think easier to understand. Note that people coming from a VB background will have an even harder time with Gunnerson than Liberty. (People with this background should probably choose Archer's Inside C# book from Microsoft Press.)

Summing up: Buy both books if you can, if not buy Liberty's book for a pure tutorial and buy Gunnerson to learn C# style plus how to develop a serious multithreaded application.