The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Looking for a C# book
MKR
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm looking for a good book on C# that goes deep, and covers stuff from beginner to intermediate (or advanced). I tried looking on the big bookstore sites and amazon.com, but it's hard to tell anything from comments.
MKR on
0
Posts
http://www.harding.edu/fmccown/vbnet_csharp_comparison.html
This is a pretty exhaustive chart of C# syntax.
I maintain that 95% of the learning curve of C# is learning the .NET Framework, and Microsoft has many training books on it.
Unfortunately I cannot recommend a specific one since I largely learned C# from modifying and maintaining existing applications rather than taking courses and doing tutorials.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
What was that site Microsoft set up that's like Sourceforge, but has .NET stuff? I forgot the name.
I learned most of what I know from presenting myself with challenges (eg: I want to connect to a database, what's the best way to do that) and then researching the problem thoroughly, writing code to do it, testing it, tinkering, etc. As you do your research you will uncover a lot of the framework. With .NET there's no less than 3 ways to do anything you can think of and the odds are that only a very small fraction of those ways are actually good in terms of performance and flexibility. God, there's like 90 billion ways to connect and retrieve data from a database.
Fortunately I work with a small platoon of MSCE's who I can bounce ideas and questions off of.
As far as good sites, asp.net is obviously a safe resource. There's a forum there and you're generally guaranteed a response for average questions within 24 hours.
The only time I have issues that I cannot solve by asking/MSDN, I go to asp.net.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/aa740375.aspx
These are the hands-on labs for C#. Try them, doing it from start to finish exactly as they instruct. Read it carefully, and it will explain why certain things are being done... if you're of the "see it, then do it" learning type, these hands on labs are little pieces of gold, and far more useful than the other documentation (or even books) that Microsoft often provides (which are notoriously poorly organized, especially for the "see it, then do it" types).
I can work out how something works by looking at it though. I'll look at code from Codeplex for that.
Thanks for the advice.
Check out http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-C-2005-Daniel-Solis/dp/1590597230/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209000481&sr=8-3
If you are a seasoned programmer but new to C#, just go straight to their Pro C# book.
I would not recommend getting a C# book for .NET 1.1, as .NET 2.0 was a pretty dramatic change and you will want to understand things like generics. However, anything 2.0 and up should be fine.
I've coded in C# just using MSDN's craptastic website, since it was needed for a project.
If you're learning C# of your own free will, I gotta ask, why?
It probably depends on how well someone knows programming, but there's a difference between coding something up in C# and coding something maintenable, scalable and conforming to accepted C# standards. If this is for a hobby those aren't as important when getting your feet wet - but if this for your career, knowledge from the best books is very important.
Because I like the IDEs for it (I'm using SharpDevelop), and the only programs I write never see the light of day. It's mainly for simplicity. If I were going to write something for distribution, I would probably go with C++.
That's what a style guide would be for.
Now as for me, I think the hands-on labs are the best alternative to a book: but that's just because it happens to fit my "monkey see, monkey do" style of learning. Yeah, I'm not one of the gifted people who can figure things out through improvisation, but it's how I roll (and how many other people roll, otherwise the Hands-on labs wouldn't exist).
Some people can just sit in front of an IDE with the help file open and learn a new language, and that's awesome and I respect that kind of skill. Some people can look at splintered fragments of code (such as MSDN provides) and piece them together in their head, and that's great too. But no one solution will work for everyone is what I'm trying to say here.
I think it's good for us to provide him with non-book alternatives, but outright discouraging from the use of a book could be counterproductive if it's the style of learning he's best at (and he tries to go against the grain of his learning style because it was implied that books are for unskilled programmers when, in fact, they're often designed for many people from novices to masters in their respective fields, and their use is only limited by how attuned you are at learning from books in general).
But C# is such a general language, and with so many similarities to other languages, that a rule book isn't necessary if you're already up to speed with popular languages. I'd say the same for Java, and I'm a huge Java fan. There's certain languages with preeminent books that everyone should buy, but I don't feel that way here. In all likelyhood, he'll just end up trawling the web for info.
Hence, it was developed by Microsoft, headed by Anders Hejsberg, so looking him up on wikipedia I found this published work:
The C# Programming Language, Second Edition, Addison-Wesley Professional, ISBN 0-321-33443-4 , June 9, 2006
So this is what you should look at first.