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Title: Professional C# (2nd Edition) by Simon Robinson, Burt Harvey, Christian Nagel, Ollie Cornes, Karli Watson, Morgan Skinner, Jay Glynn, Zach Greenvoss, Scott Allen ISBN: 1861007043 Publisher: Wrox Press Inc Pub. Date: 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $59.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.51
Rating: 5
Summary: Perfect tutorial&reference for experienced programmers
Comment: This is a big and heavy book (I just love this kind), and it covers more apects of C# than any other book on the market. No matter what you want to do with C#, you'll find something useful in this book.
I learned C# from the first edition of this book, and bought the second edition to use for reference. If you have some Visual Basic, C++ or Java background, this is the best book you can find to learn C# (you should also have the basic concepts of OOP programming, although there is an appendix that focuses solely on that subject). After you have learned C#, this is the best book to keep on your desk when you get into trouble and MSDN can't help too much.
If you're new to .NET, the first chapter ("C# and the .NET Arhictecture") will be really enlightening. Chapters 2,3,4 (C# Basics, Object-Oriented C# and Advanced C# topics) cover all you need to know about C# syntax and basics. The book also contains valuable material and plenty of code examples about Windows Forms, ADO.NET, ASP.NET, XML, File and Registry Operations, Working with Active Directory, Web Services and .NET remoting, COM Interoperability, COM+, GDI+ and so on. It doesn't try to cover exaustively each of those subjects, but it's enough to get you started.
Have fun with this big red book. This is definitely one of my favourite programming books, and the price is so low compared to the amount of quality information it has inside.
Rating: 3
Summary: Good Enough
Comment: Among the programming books that I have read, I have noticed that there tend to be two specific types: tutorials and references. Tutorials are step-by-step books (Deitel comes to mind) which progress from beginning to end comprehensively. References are simply books that you can look something up if needs be. With Professional C#, Wrox has managed to combine the two genres into a very workable format.
A note to those who would opt for this book: There is a Beginning C# book by Wrox that would be more suited to those who have little background in programming. As for Professional, the only requirements that seem to be needed are a sound understanding of general programming practices. From there, the book explains itself. It helps by relating C# concepts to their Java, C++, and Visual Basic counterparts, so those with experience in those three fields will find this book a much easier text to read.
Now on to the actual content of the book, all 1200-plus pages of it! The book starts out with a fairly in-depth analysis and explanation of what the .NET Framework is and why you should care at all. Through the next four chapters, the concepts, syntax, and Base Classes are introduced. This is where I believe the 'tutorial' part of the book comes in. Reading these chapters in order would be a wise thing to do, in my opinion as a somewhat-but-not-totally-experienced programmer. Each topic flows nicely into the next and provides easy and understandable reading, chock-full of examples and code-snippets. As I mentioned before, many of these topics are related back to Java, C++, and VB, making concepts easier to grasp.
Once you have finished reading through those five chapters, the book in its entirety turns into a 'reference' book. There isn't any specific order you should read through. You can simply pick a topic and read up on it. Wrox offers a myriad of topics throughout the 23 chapters in the book including a tutorial of the Visual Studio .NET environment, working with C# on ASP.NET pages, other web services, graphics, remoting, security, and many more. The scope of the book is definitely large as Wrox attempts to cram in as much C# and .NET knowledge as is humanly possible.
So is this book sufficient for programmers looking to get started with C#? Most definitely. This book is excellent as either a tutorial or a reference and covers nearly every topic you could imagine. However, it also has its problems.
The main problem I have with this book is simply the fact that it has no class index. There is no place to just 'look up' what classes have what methods and properties and the such. In addition, when new classes are introduced throughout the text, many of the methods are given, but their signatures are not! The first example that comes to mind is the String class section in Chapter 5: The book lists a few of the methods of the String class (not all of them, however), but all they give are the names of the methods. How am I supposed to use these methods if I don't know how they work? Many of them are seemingly intuitive, and you can find all the information through Microsoft's MSDN, but many programmers these days want a book they can reference when they have a problem. The way that it is set up, this book would fail miserably at the task.
Another problem is that the examples tend to be a little 'shallow'. The code snippets are definitely useful, but only after studying them for a few minutes to see exactly what is going on. The context of the examples could definitely be a lot better.
Finally, just a minor little problem: There tends to be a more-than-necessary number of spelling and syntactical errors, the former more than the latter. While this isn't a huge problem, I encountered so many spelling and grammatical errors that I honestly believe that running it through Word's spell and grammar checkers probably would have alleviated many of the problems. The syntax errors are few and far between, but they are still evident. With a book that is over 1200 pages in size with as many authors as this has, it is definitely acceptable to have these kinds of mistakes. But I still believe it could have been edited a bit more thoroughly.
Despite its few faux pas, the book as a whole is an excellent resource that any and every C# programmer should have. Even without full class and method signatures, using the book as a reference is easy to do and should be done. It covers many topics in-depth that other C# books have failed to mention, especially when it comes to web services and programming. Professional C# 2nd Edition is certainly on my recommended list.
Rating: 4
Summary: Great book, based on certain expectations.
Comment: Talk about a tough (and HUGE) subject to cover! Well, I bought this book for two reasons (1) to get a better understanding of C#, and (2) to serve as a starting point for passing the C# for Windows exam. The book served both purposes very well. I read this text cover to cover with the exception of 4 out of 23 chapters.
I saw another review of this book that said something like "1300 page cursory overview" Well, you're probably right. But, I challenge anyone out there to find a book that covers every aspect of .NET that's less that 5,000 pages. Here are a few examples:
1.) There's a chapter on security (there are entire books on the subject)
2.) There's a chapter on ASP (there are entire books on the subject)
3.) There's a chapter on web services (there are entire books on the subject)
4.) There's a chapter on XML (there are entire books on the subject)
5.) There's two chapters on ADO .NET (there are entire books on the subject)
You get my point. This material adds up, and anyone expecting in-depth coverage of everything in 1300 pages should get a reality check. Unfortunately, to really get a grasp on .NET you're going to have to shell out for more books. (So far I have C# in general, web services, and ADO covered. The next purchase will be an ASP .NET book) Can you see where I'm going here? Professional C# is kind of an umbrella for all of the other books. Now, where I find this book does a nice job by itself (not requiring another text) is as follows:
1.) Nice job explaining the C# language itself (including some of the more advanced datatypes), as well as how it implements OO principles.
2.) Nice job explaining what and how the framework is constructed, as well as how a .NET application is constructed.
3.) Focuses mostly on the client-server (windows as opposed to web) side of development.
4.) ADO coverage is enough to get you productive.
There are a LOT of other good features of the book. And most of the subject areas covered provide an adequate presentation of the material. A couple of exceptions are ASP and security. I realize that a book on C# must at least touch on these topics, but it probably could have just left those chapters out. Buy another book. (35 pages on ASP .NET? Don't bother!)
I can't say if it's too advanced for some users. I've never purchased a "beginning" series book by Wrox, I alway go for the "professional". The only thing I would have expected them to do a better job on beacuse you can't really get a separate book on the subject, is deployment.
Anyhoo, I think this is a great book for the purpose for which it was intended. If it was 5,000 pages long, I would have given it 5 stars. For the most part, Wrox usually does a good job. Remember, there are NO silver bullets with .NET books. Unfortunately you're going to have to get at least 4 titles to cover everything well.
Bottom Line: If this is your first .NET book, it's worth it. It was my fourth, and it's still worth it. If you need to take it to the next level, you'll need more than one book - no matter which one you get first.
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