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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #209104 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 816 pages

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.

About the Author

About the Author

Bradley L. Jones (Brad@TeachYourselfCSharp.com) is the site manager for a number of high-profile developer sites—including CodeGuru.com, Developer.com, and VBForums.com—and is an executive editor of Jupitermedia's EarthWeb channel, which is a part of Internet.com. Bradley has been working with C# longer than most developers because he was invited to Microsoft before the official beta release. Bradley's background includes experience developing in C, C++, PowerBuilder, SQL Server, and numerous other tools and technologies. Additionally, he is an internationally best-selling author who wrote the original 21 Days book: Sams Teach Yourself C in 21 Days. On Developer.com and CodeGuru.com, you find a number of articles from Bradley on topics ranging from .NET to mobile development to general developer topics.

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Customer Reviews

21 days well spent
Do not expect to learn C# in 21 days. It may take longer, it may not. But do not let that statement put you off. The book is an easy read on the whole and is split down into a simple to follow manor.

Each chapter explains a certain area of C# which is broken down to help your progression with the your own development of the language.

From previous experience with programming in C i found myself skimming though some of the earlier chapters, but this did not distrupt the progression though the book.

The book also gives more detail into how your programs run, and not just stick to basics. I found this helpful as i could understand what was happening when my programs where running.

With the inclusion of samples, tasks and questions you can put what you have been learning into practice as you learn it. Without waiting to learn more of the language first.

For anyone who wants to learn C# i would suggest this book a great read but not something that would be good on a beach, unless you had your laptop ;-)

A must-have if you're getting into C#
I've completed the book and I was impressed. It covers all the main topics of the programming language and the theory. Unlike most books, there is no waffling; everything is to-the-point, short and easy to follow. It's written in a way everyone can understand - no techy jargon (unless it was introduced to you beforehand in the book).

It's great for first-time programmers like myself. I suspect it's also good for intermediate users too. Like the title, it's a must-have if you're ever going to use C#

Beginners guide, doesn't cover Visual Studio IDE
It is important to realise that this is a book for beginners. If you are an experienced developer wanting to cross-train from C++, Java, VB.Net etc then this is not the book for you. I pretty much speed-read the book in three days (I would have been quicker but I had other things to do as well), typing in code when it looked like it might be a useful exercise. As C# is largely an amalgam of bits from other popular languages it is easy to plough through this book at speed if you do know other object-oriented languages. If you are a complete beginner then I suspect this book is probably at about the right level and for complete beginners 21 days could be about right.

As well as the language itself, the book gives the basics of console input/output, file handling, windows forms, database access and some web stuff. As the author says a number of times, the libraries used for .Net programming are so large, you couldn't do more than skim the surface even in a book of this size.

A few other things to note about this book...

This book does not teach you about the Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE), or about the code generated by the IDE. Instead it works from first principles - no use of a forms editor here, this is typing in instructions to add a control, position the control, set the control colour, handle the related events etc, rather than having the basis of that automatically generated. Useful to know how to do it manually, but I suspect most people would rather take the IDE route. Personally, I do like to know both, so it is good for me the way it is.

There are a number of typographical errors in the text, most of which are unimportant, but they have also crept into at least one source listing, although that was easy enough to spot.

The errata on the author's web-site is incomplete and hasn't been updated recently. The errata on the publisher's web-site is, well, missing. Just to repeat that bit - it isn't there (or not anywhere that I could find it). Don't bother registering on the publisher's web-site - registering doesn't suddenly provide access to the errata. Thankfully none of the errors that I spotted in the text were serious.

The example code at the end of "Week 2" is a blackjack game. Nothing too bad about that, other than it fails to use the most interesting bits from week 2. It also mixes naming conventions throughout the code, which is really annoying when you are typing the code in. Use camel notation, use all lower-case, use Hungarian - it doesn't matter, but it would make life easier if the author was consistent. The whole example was poor and could have been replaced with something more relevant to the week's work.

All in all, quite a good book for beginners, with the caveat that it doesn't teach you about the Visual Studio IDE. Not the right book for an experienced developer cross-training from another object-oriented language.