Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: A limited but still useful introduction to C#
Comment: If you are already familiar with C++ and/or Java, this book is most likely too basic for an introduction to C#. I have been using "Microsoft Visual C# .NET Step by Step--Version 2003" by Jon Jagger for about 2.5 months now and the level of information feels like a first course in compsci (title is "Step by Step" - suppose that makes sense). There are (very important) details in Visual Studio, such as defining references and dependencies, that are not covered. In addition, the section on Windows Forms is rather weak. Most Windows applications have multiple controls and forms and the important mechanisms to allow communication between multple controls and forms is not mentioned. Despite the shortcomings, it is useful to at least see the concepts in the book and have some idea of the meaning. I was rusty on C/C++ and this book did serve as a nice refresher to object oriented programming. In summary, an basic/adaquate introduction to C# suitable for object oriented programming beginners- it holds true to the "Step by Step" name. For more information regarding Windows forms and controls, seek out another more detailed C# book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great way to learn C# with useful examples
Comment: This is by far one of the best programming books I have ever bought. The authors explain the C# concepts very well and walk you through examples that not only teach the language concepts but also give you useful programming tips that you will need. For example, the chapter on using Methods gives you an example of the method that shows you how to read input from a console.
That said, this is not a beginners programming book. You really need some knowledge of object oriented programming and it helps to be familliar with the Microsoft IDE (either VC++ or VB). If you have some experience with those then this is a great book to learn C#. Also I find the Microsoft Press "Step By Step" book much easier to follow then their other reference books.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not a tutorial almost a text book, more of a referance
Comment: This book is detail oriented, and goes into some depth into the structure and capablities of the language.Overall it is well organized and focused with little fluff, and does touch on relavant topics. However, there is little in the way of the 'hands on' projects that can be found in a tutorial or most college textbooks..I found this aspect annoying since this is the primary way I learn. Ultimatley, I will end up using it for a referance
Customer Rating:
Summary: good first book on visual c#
Comment: 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+, ...
Customer Rating:
Summary: For experienced programmers only
Comment: The problem with C# is that it is a product created by Microsoft solely for Microsoft's programming environment (Visual Studio .Net and SQL Server 2005) and hence is really of no use to anyone who is interested in LEARNING the FUNDAMENTALS of programming. C# programming can really ONLY take place in a Visual Studio .Net IDE and thus - unlike platform and IDE independent Java, C++, and C - has not been adopted by the academic community. College textbooks on programming tend to focus (almost exclusively) on Java, C, and C++. Please see any textbook by Walter Savitch or Cay Horstmann to learn the fundamentals of programming. As someone with basic programming skills you would then be ready for this book. But this is not a book to learn how to program. That being said this is an excellent introduction to the Visual Studio .Net IDE.
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