So, as a hobby I decided to teach myself programming, and bought an introduction to C# textbook off of amazon. Except, now that it's here and i'm looking through it, i realize that i made a really stupid mistake and bought a book that was published in
2002.
So, do I try to get my money back, or, more likely, consider my 120 bucks lost, and just get a modern book, or is there still going to be useful information for me in here? And if I do need a new book, and I'm assuming I do, what would people suggest? I've taken two or three introduction-level classes but I would still very much consider myself a beginner.
or heck doesn't even necessarily have to be a book, if someone knows a good online program that just has like, explanations for concepts and practice problems or whatever, that'd also be cool
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If you want something else, though, you could check out Udacity. They have an interesting entry-level Python programming course and some slightly more advanced courses coming. Free, of course.
C# and .NET has changed a lot since 2002.
Now, luckily there is tons of support online for the language. MSDN is your friend.
If you search for any programming topic and "getting started" on MSDN is should come up with something. Also you can download Visual Studio 2010 Express for free (and Express is plenty for anything you'll be doing, including Windows Phone or XNA Xbox stuff).
here is the C# getting started page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/a72418yk.aspx
one thing to note about MSDN is that it archives the Help for older versions / frameworks. There is usally a little dropdown in the top of an article for which version it is about ("other versions"). You'll want to focus in C# and .NET 4.0. (or .NET 4.0 Compact if you are doing Windows Phone or Xbox dev)
edit: note that C# is a language used in many different kinds of applications (though it is specific to Microsoft platforms, you won't be coding for Mac or Android or iOS with it).
For games stuff (including Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox): C# with XNA
For windows desktop applications: C# with WPF (winforms is the older framework)
For Windows Phone applications (as opposed to Windows Phone games): C# with Silverlight
For sever side enterprise stuff (eg: web services, backends to websites): C# with ASP.NET and IIS
further edit: oh and when talking about this kind of stuff I have to post that I work for Microsoft