What is the best book to learn C#? 6

[IEAN]

I am brand new to .NET and c#, have no OOP experience before, worked with ASP - What is the best book to learn C# for a person with a programming background like me?

 

[JurkMonkey]

Sams Teach Yourself C# in 24 Hours.

It has a lot of good introductory projects that are VERY easy to follow. It's a great starter book.

 

[IEAN]

Thank you for your reply! ok, I will get started on that book, after I finished with that book, I may need another more advance book - any suggestions on a good more advance C# books that I can read after I finish reading this one? Thanks again!

 

[brd24gor]

I am personally a big fan of the Microsoft Press C# Step-by-Step book. It is more of a reference, and more language specific than the Sams book. Most of the time the Sams books use the first 5 hours or so to introduce you to programming concepts before getting into the meat of it.

If you will be doing a lot of Windows Forms programming, I HIGHLY recommend "Windows Forms Programming in C#" by Chris Sells. There is a lot of good stuff in here regarding controls and form layout.

--Brad

 

[JurkMonkey]

Yeah - that book is awesome too!

 

[ralphtrent]

I found C# Step-by-Step to be a complete waste. I returned that one and got Murachs C#. That is good if you are a beginner. WROX C# Professional 3rd Edition is also very good if you are not a beginner.

 

[IEAN]

Thanks guys for your excellent suggestions!

 

[imterpsfan3]

I think the best book for a beginner is Murach's C#. By the end of the book you'll be at the intermediate level. Most of the C# books on the market are horrible at object oriented concepts but this book gives you some real life examples that you might use in your own programs. Also all of the code samples actually work! That's another anomaly in the programming book genre.

I also enjoyed the chapters on ADO.NET, because the authors discussed different ways of creating an application, bound or unbound, etc.

I thought the C# Step by Step was a decent book but didn't do a good job of presenting OOP concepts. I liked the chapters on ASP.NET and Web Services.

Wrox's Beginning Visual C# is also a good book.

One book is not going to do it for you, even if you are a beginner. I would go to Barnes and Noble and flip through the books first.

 

[nwyork]

I'm half way through C # Step by Step, and it is a definite refresher. I learned OO in college so I'm not sure how good this book will be for a beginner to OO. I heard Kalani's books are good for studying for the 70-315 and 70-316 certifications. I need to check out "Windows Forms Programming in C#" by Chris Sells. Maybe I will read that book next.

 

[imterpsfan3]

I think another way of finding a good book is to go on Amazon.com and just do a search on C#. You can even define the search (advanced search) based on reader ratings. The ratings are based on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the best. You can also read the reader reviews as well. If a lot of people are either praising or panning a book, I take some notice of it. And chances are good you can pick up a book on Amazon cheaper than buying it at the bookstore.

Some people really like the O'Reilly books. Jesse Liberty has written several books on C# for them. Beginning C# is more for beginners, Programming C# intermediate to advanced. You won't get a lot of nice screen shots or graphics in the book, but you will get lots of code samples.

 

[Walid]

The best book that was ever written about C#, in my opinion of course, is Troelsen’s award winner C# and the .NET Platform. This is your best start

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...bs_b_2_1/104-5168093-2435136?v=glance&s=books

This book has 4 stars based on 95 reviews.

Best of luck


Walid Magd

 

[brd24gor]

I had taken an OOP class in college and found the Step-by-Step a good way to get into the C# language without having to dredge through the OO stuff again. I will have to check out the Murach's C# book.

Kudos on the Amazon tip. They are an excellent place for ratings and reviews on books for any computer-related topic.

--Brad

 

[stsuing]

Not a book, but a good place to learn. There are VPC on line and you can complete the labs here...

https://msdn.demoservers.com/default.aspx

Here is a List of c# Labs
Creating ASP.NET Web Applications with C# -Part 1
Creating ASP.NET Web Applications with C# -Part 2
Creating a distributed application with C#
Creating Windows Applications with C# -Part 1
Creating Windows Applications with C# -Part 2
Creating Windows Applications with C# -Part 3
Data Access using ADO.NET with C# -Part 1
Data Access using ADO.NET with C# -Part 2
No-Touch Deployment with the Microsoft .NET Framework with C#
Soup to Nuts Lab 1: A Tour of Visual Studio .NET
Soup to Nuts Lab 2: Creating Top-Notch User Experiences with Windows Forms in Visual Studio .NET
Soup to Nuts Lab 3-Rapid Application Development with Visual Studio .NET
Soup to Nuts Lab 4: Object-Oriented Concepts in Microsoft .NET Winforms Applications - Part 1
Soup to Nuts Lab 4: Object-Oriented Concepts in Microsoft .NET Winforms Applications - Part 2
Soup to Nuts Lab 5: .NET Framework Programming
Soup to Nuts Lab 6: User Interface Beauty Tips for Windows Forms Applications
Soup to Nuts Lab 7: Exceptions Happen: Optimized Exception Handling with Microsoft .NET
Soup to Nuts Lab 8 - ADO.NET Programming
Soup to Nuts Lab 9: Configuration and Deployment in .NET
Soup to Nuts Lab 10: Enterprise Development With .NET
Soup to Nuts Lab 11 - Developing Smart Clients With .NET
Soup to Nuts Lab 12 - Windows Forms Security
Soup to Nuts Lab 13 - Advanced ADO.NET
Soup to Nuts Lab 14 - Advanced .NET Programming

 

[imterpsfan3]

I'm assuming you need some sort of MSDN membership to access this website? It was prompting me for a user name and password.

 

[stsuing]

There is a "click here to sign up" link on that page. I'm not sure if you need a MSDN membership or not. I don't think so.

 

[AndrewJMarshall]

Once you feel comfortable with C#, please read "Effective C#" by Bill Wagner.

"50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C#" - some mundane, some quite interesting and important.

 

[SQLDenis]

Programming C# by Jesse Liberty (O'Reilly)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...sql08-20/104-8025778-0330318?v=glance&s=books

“I sense many useless updates in you... Useless updates lead to defragmentation... Defragmentation leads to downtime...Downtime leads to suffering..Defragmentation is the path to the darkside.. DBCC INDEXDEFRAG and DBCC DBREINDEX are the force...May the force be with you" --

http://sqlservercode.blogspot.com/

 

[JurkMonkey]

What did you eat for lunch?

 

[imterpsfan3]

I was thinking that the Soup To Nuts was just for beginners, but I learned some tricks that I haven't made use of before. It has a tutorial on form object inheritance and visual inheritance with forms as well as using asynchronous processing of threads.

What I also liked about the tutorials was that they encompassed a real live project that progressively built upon the previous lessons. Why don't more books do this? I think this is the best way to learn. Too often I see books with code examples that have very little relevance to a real application.

The most ridiculous one I saw was regarding OOP concepts. It presented an entire chapter on creating an Animal class and using inheritance to create a Dog class and a Cat class. It even had Meow and Bark overriding methods...Now I can really use that one!

The ADO.NET stuff on the tutorials wasn't enlightening to me however.

The Jesse Liberty books have never turned me on, although he is a very popular author. He churns out .NET books like mad. I just don't like seeing voluminous code examples that span 20 pages with about a page of explanation.

The next book I'm trying out is Professional C# by Wrox. I really liked the Murach book and that got me to an intermediate level.