Message from Dean - May 8th 2007

I am currently testing out a new version of the APF Bridge Component - If you notice any errors within this demo store please drop me a line.

Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.133
EAN: 9780596514822
Format: Illustrated
ISBN: 0596514824
Label: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 778
Publication Date: November 26, 2007
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Studio: O'Reilly Media, Inc.

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• Books > Subjects > Computers & Internet > Programming > Languages & Tools > C#

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Do you want to learn C#? Programmers around the world have learned that C# lets them design great-looking programs and build them fast. With C#, you ve got a powerful programming language and a valuable tool at your fingertips. And with the Visual Studio IDE, you ll never have to spend hours writing obscure code just to get a button working. C#, Visual Studio and .NET take care of the grunt-work, and let you focus on the interesting parts of getting your programs written. Sound appealing?

Unlike other C# books, which just show you examples and expect you to just memorize them and move on, Head First C# gets you writing code from the beginning. You're given the tools you need, and then you're guided through fun and engaging programming projects. You'll build programs to play a card game, explore a house, and help lazy programmers manage their sick day excuses. But it's not all fun and games: you'll build business applications too, like a contact database and a program to help a party planner estimate her dinner parties. You'll build a dungeon role-playing game and a fully animated, colorful simulation of a beehive. And by the end of the book, you'll build a fast-paced, full-featured retro Invaders arcade game.

Make no mistake: by the time you're done with Head First C#, you'll be able to build full-scale, complex, and highly visual programs. And you'll have all of the C# tools you need to tackle almost any programming problem that comes your way.

Head First C# is built for your brain, using the revolutionary approach that was pioneered by the highly acclaimed and popular Head First series. You'll never get that bored, "eyes glazed over" feeling from Head First C#, because it guides you through one challenging project after another until, by the end of the book, you're a C# rock star!

Here's what you'll learn:

• Core C# programming concepts
• How to use the Visual Studio 2008 IDE to build, debug and run your programs
• Important .NET 3.5 features, including generic collections, Windows forms, GDI+ graphics, streams, serialization and more
• Using object oriented programming concepts to help you build well-designed programs
• How to build robust applications with good error handling
• The latest C# 3.0 features, including LINQ, object and collection initializers, automatic properties, extension methods and more

Throughout the book, you'll confront and conquer advanced C# concepts. Some of the most mysterious ideas are demystified and explained with clear examples: how Unicode works, events and delegates, references versus value types, the stack versus the heap, what's really going on with garbage collection, and more.

Thousands of readers have learned C# using this innovative book, including:

• Beginning programmers who want to learn programming from the ground up
• More advanced programmers who are proficient in another language (like Visual Basic, Java, SQL, FoxPro) and want to add C# to their toolbox
• Programmers who understand basic C# syntax, but are still looking to get a handle on how objects work
• Anyone who's tried to learn C#, but had to deal with books full of dull examples and nothing but boring console applications
• Lots of people who just want to learn how to build cool games!

Head First C# is built to work with any version of Visual Studio 2008, including the free express edition. (It can also can be used with any version of Visual Studio 2005.)




Rating: - Great concept, poor execution
I so badly want to give "Head First C#" five stars -- this is the way technical books /should/ be written -- but after having worked through a few chapters, I can't.

As a technical writer, I detest dull books that fail to engage the reader. Stellman and Greene's approach, loaded with Alice-friendly pictures and conversations, is a great way to keep the reader interested and involved. *

Unfortunately, the execution falls well-short of the goal.

The fundamental problem is that "Head First C#" assumes the reader knows little or nothing about programming. This is /not/ the audience for a C# book, because C# is a relatively new language, and beginning programmers rarely start with it. Those learning C# are usually programmers having experience with C++, Java, or some other object-oriented language. They're likely to be distracted reading about things they already know.

A book cannot simultaneously "focus" on two audiences. "Head First C#" should ... Read More

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Rating: - Like having an Instructor that you can Understand
I've written C# for a while now. But it's always good to go back and brush up here and there. This book is just a good read for both beginning AND experienced programmers. No matter how long you have coded most all programmers are always learning something new about OOP, as simple as it may be and this book does a good job bringing up those issues that a teammate or team lead most likely is not going to show you and so the experience/mentor type of situation happens right in this book as you read. It's pretty cool how they did this.

I don't know how many pages answered so many questions for me. For example it really teaches you about Interfaces well. It tells you WHY, beyond just the stupid general term of an Interface which doesn't really tell you jack outside of the basic definition of an interface...and really shows you in a well worded teaching-like way to explain WHEN you should use it and WHAT can happen. I also like the info about upcasting and downcasting.
... Read More

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Rating: - Book is more confusing than anything.
First let me tell you my background. I have a MCSE and my background is in Network Engineering and I am shifting my career to Software Engineering. However I took C++ in college and it was less confusing than this book. The information in this book is all over the place with diagrams, arrows etc, things written all over the place wondering what order are they really suppose to go to and it's confusing me more than anything. I am on Chapter 5 and at this point I am more confused than anything. I have decided to look for a better book at this point.
Hope you find this review useful.

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Rating: - Dissapointed by this book
Worked through the first 250 pages and just had to start looking for something else. The idea of illustrations is good but the delivery is not. It's like creating a coloring book for brain surgery - not going to work. Interestingly I always had questions at parts where there was no pencil markup so I could not make sense of things. At page 250, the book is still working on explaining classes and objects. The examples are dry and uninteresting, Very hard to keep focus on them. I found a free ebook on Microsoft site called C# for kids and I was able to get more out of the first 35 pages than from 250 of this book.

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Rating: - SQL Express and Visual C# Exprees is a bad combination.
The authors provide instructions in Chapter 1 on page 18 for adding a SQL Service-based Database to a project. I never could get pass this step. There was considerable discussion in the O Reilly forum on this topic as many others were having problems getting past this step. I tried all of the suggestions offered but none helped and was disappointed in the authors shotgun approach for providing a solution. Obviously from the number of recommendations many more people made it past page 18 than the people who got stuck there. But as for me I have already wasted a week on this book and will not waste any more time. I bought this book because of the good experience I had with Head First HTML with CSS & XTML. But Head First C# no where nears matches the quality of Head First HTML.

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