Illustrated C# 2005, Apress
Microsoft .NET Framework, ASP.NET, Visual C# (CSharp, C Sharp, C-Sharp) Developer Training, Visual Studio
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C# Online.NET Book Review
This book would be a great book for beginners in a classroom setting, for self-motivated beginners, or for programmers who want to learn or brush-up on the C# language quickly. The material is well organized into—where possible—a single topic per page. And, the reader will want to keep the book handy for quick reference for some time. But, there is no attempt to teach object-oriented programming (OOP) or programming itself. So, either prior experience or guidance is in order.
The author of this book emphasizes the "illustrated" nature of the book, i.e., a picture is worth 03E816 words. And, he employs a myriad of small diagrams to make his points visually and effectively. However, the book is dominated by source code rather than by diagrams—as it should be.
Our author is an English major—among other things—and, obviously, an experienced trainer. He does an excellent job of selecting mot justes and apt illustrations to get the message across clearly and succinctly. There are plenty of source code examples which serve only to illustrate the point at hand.
One quibble directed—not at this book alone—but to all publishers who are printing source code on a fashionably dark backgrounds: This practice markedly reduces the contrast between the text and the background making it harder to read. True, this is not much of a problem in strong, direct light or if your eyeballs are still under warranty. But, for those of us whose ciliary muscles are obsolescent, this can be a problem.
All the source code examples in this book are in the C# language.
Bottom line
Illustrated C# 2005 is a great, easy to read, and easy to absorb, introductory C# text.
Publisher's description
Illustrated C# 2005 doesn’t use the traditional dense prose format of most programming texts. Rather, it presents the C# programming language in a unique visual manner. The book uses three techniques to achieve this: concise text; tables that clarify and summarize language features; and frequent figures and diagrams. Each feature is also illustrated with concise, focused code samples.
The book starts with an overview of the .NET platform and the role played by C#, then quickly delves into the language. It covers the entire C# language, including new features added in C# 2.0 as well as the most complex topics. It’s an ideal read if you’re a migrating C++ or VB programmer who already knows how languages work.
Despite its title—which might give the impression that it’s a lightweight treatment of the language—this book is anything but. With its clean visual format, you’ll be able to learn the material more quickly and retain it better than you would with a typical C# 2005 book. Even experienced programmers may come away from it with a deeper understanding of the language
About the author(s)
Dan Solis is a contract software engineer who has worked for a number of high-profile clients, including Microsoft Consulting Services, IBM, Lockheed Martin, and PeopleSoft. He has been programming and teaching object-oriented languages and development methods throughout the US and Europe since the early days of C++. It was while teaching numerous seminars on various programming languages that he realized the immense power of diagrams in explaining programming language concepts.
The author speaks
Now that there are loads of C# books available, the most common question people have been asking me is, "Do we really need yet another book on C# -- how is your book different than all the rest?" Those are excellent questions, and ones that I'm excited to answer. In short, Illustrated C# 2005 presents the language visually and concisely.
As a programmer who has used many programming languages over the years, I've found that often in programming texts, although the information might be well presented, it can be hidden in a dense sea of words. I sometimes find it difficult to spend the time to slog through another 900-page book of dense text to learn a new language, and I know a lot of other programmers feel the same way. Many C++, Java and VB programmers might be tempted to pick up a book on C# if it were presented visually and concisely, without sacrificing thoroughness and depth, and without being "dumbed-down" or skipping the advanced features of the language.
To address this situation, I wrote the book I wish I'd had when I was learning the language. In Illustrated C# 2005, I've used figures, focused code samples and concise explanations to present and illustrate the language. The thing that makes this text different is its uniquely succinct and visual format.
Many of us think visually, and in this book, figures are of prime importance. When I was teaching programming language seminars, I found that I could almost watch the light bulbs going on over the students' heads as I drew the figures on the whiteboard. In this book, I've expanded that concept, and distilled each important concept into simple but accurate illustrations.
For something as intricate and precise as a programming language, however, there must be text as well as figures. But rather than long, wordy explanations, I've used concise descriptions, tables and bulleted lists to make each important piece of information visually distinct in order to make it easy to absorb, and easy to find again later.
If you want a long, leisurely, verbose explanation of the language -- this is NOT the book for you! But it you want a concise, but thorough presentation of the language -- this might be just what you're looking for.
I hope this answers the question of "why yet another C# book". I also hope you'll give it a try, and enjoy it!
Dan
Table of Contents (abbreviated)
- CHAPTER 1 C# and the .NET Framework
- CHAPTER 2 Overview of C# Programming
- CHAPTER 3 Types, Storage, and Variables
- CHAPTER 4 Classes: The Basics
- CHAPTER 5 Methods
- CHAPTER 6 More About Classes
- CHAPTER 7 Classes and Inheritance
- CHAPTER 8 Expressions and Operators
- CHAPTER 9 Statements
- CHAPTER 10 Namespaces and Assemblies
- CHAPTER 11 Exceptions
- CHAPTER 12 Structs
- CHAPTER 13 Enumerations
- CHAPTER 14 Arrays
- CHAPTER 15 Delegates
- CHAPTER 16 Events
- CHAPTER 17 Interfaces
- CHAPTER 18 Conversions
- CHAPTER 19 Generics
- CHAPTER 20 Enumerators and Iterators
- CHAPTER 21 Attributes
- CHAPTER 22 Preprocessor Directives
- CHAPTER 23 Other Topics
