The first edition of thise book was released during the 2001 TechEd conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Since then, C# and the .NET Platform has been translated into eight different languages, nominated as a 2002 Jolt Award Finalst, and named winner of the 2003 Referenceware Excellence Awards in the best programming book category.
For those of you who have read the first edition, were happy to report that the text has gone through a substantial upgrade. You will find that every chapter has been updated with additional fresh content. Several new chapters exist, including coverage of the .NET Remoting layer, core CLR atoms, and a much deeper treatment of ASP.NET. As always, the story is told using a friendly and approachable voice.
If you are checking out this book for the first time, understand that this text is intended for developers who already have some experience in a modern object language. The mission of this text is to provide you with a solid foundation of the C# language and the key aspects of the .NET platform (assemblies, Windows Forms, Web Forms, etc.). Once you read and absorb these twenty chapters, you will be in a perfect position to apply this knowldege to your specific programming assignments, and you will be well equipped to explore the .NET universe on your own terms.
Aimed at the reader with some previous programming experience, C# and the .NET Platform provides an enjoyable and well-paced tutorial for learning C# and Microsoft's new .NET Framework. This well-written guide is all you need to get onboard with the latest in Windows development.
Today, there are a growing number of titles available for C#. This text strikes an excellent balance between a basic language tutorial with an authoritative presentation of what's new and better in .NET with coverage of the some of the inner details of the platform, including deployment. The author's patient writing style is never dull or overly technical, which will mean this book is a good choice for a wide range of readers approaching C# from a variety of languages including C++, Java, and Visual Basic.
At certain points, the author looks at "intermediate language" (IL) bytecodes that underlie the C# language. This is particularly informative in chapters that look at assemblies and deployment. As a tour of the basics of the C# language, this book distinguishes itself with short, effective examples (many of which use a set of classes modeling cars). Coverage of programming Windows Forms is really good, as is the chapter on getting the older COM and .NET components to interoperate. The focus of this book is mostly on traditional client-side development, though it does cover the latest in Web development with sections on basic ASP.NET and Web services, which round out the book.
The author does a good job at explaining how .NET works while bringing readers of different abilities up to speed with C#. Experts will appreciate the detail on class design, COM, and Web services, while beginners will be able to follow the author's well-organized tour of the basics. In all, this combination of strengths makes C# and the .NET Platform an attractive choice in the growing list of titles on Microsoft's latest programming language. --Richard Dragan
Topics covered:
Introduction to the .NET platform
Common Language Runtime (CLR)
The Common Type Specification (CTS)
The Common Language Specifications (CLS)
Assemblies
Basics of C# classes
Constructors
Flow control and iteration
Arrays and strings
Boxing and unboxing
Object-oriented programming in C# (encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism explained)
Exception handling
Garbage collection
Implementing the ICloneable and IComparable interfaces
Introduction to .NET collections (including custom collections)
Custom indexers, delegates, and events explained
XML-based documentation
In-depth guide to .NET assemblies (including shared assemblies)
Versioning techniques for side-by-side deployment
Multithreading and synchronization
Type reflection and attributes
Windows Forms tutorial (design options, survey of components, menus and other UI widgets)
Programming the Windows registry
GDI+ graphics tutorial (including fonts, brushes, images, and using .NET resources)
Input and output (directories, files, and streams)
COM, COM+, and .NET interoperability
Tutorial to ADO.NET for database programming (including DataSets and XML basics)
Introduction to ASP and ASP.NET programming for Web development
Web services basics (including SOAP, WSDL, and the Discovery Service Protocol, DISCO)
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Excellent Book!:
I see that to-date 3 reviewers have awarded 1/5. Huh? I have a collection of at least 20 .NET related books. If I lost any of these I probably wouldn't replace them, with the exception of this book. I use the MSDN library mainly as a reference, but when I can't find what I'm looking for, amazingly, I always seem to find it in Andrew Troelsen's faithful book! Many thanks Andrew!
For serious .NET Developers:
This book should seriously exist in your shelf if you consider yourself a .NET programmer. The book explains the nitty-gritty of the C# language and consuming the .NET framework using C#. The chapter on delegates and events is thorough but I do have to admit that the chapter on Threading (Chapter 14) is somewhat lacking, but I'm guessing that Apress probably has a book for that (no points taken, Threading is another subject matter worthy of serious study). So why this book? If you really need to know what... more info
Comprehensive, But a Little Frustrating:
On the whole, I've been very happy with this book -- it covers a great deal of ground. But it doesn't really teach -- at best, it glosses. Of course, this might just be the nature of trying to cover such a vast technological landscape in a single book, but then again, I've read many a tech book of just this length, and come away with a much deeper understanding of things than I feel like I this one offers. The chapter on interfaces, events and delegates is a particularly frustrating one: the... more info
Do your own examples:
A few people criticised simple examples that go with the book.
Do your own examples for each chapter and that will teach you anything. Just reading the book and understanding it is not enough. I believe that a good programming book is the one that:
1. presents it all
2. presents it as simply as possible.
This book does it all.
