Accelerated C# 2008

This book is not for beginners. Author assumes prior knowledge of c++ or java and very often compares, notes the differences of 3. Easy to read. Chapter 4 is just too long and he mentions himself. it would be nicer to break this chapter into smaller chapters. Overall, a well written book.

This book briefly covers the basics and then shows more advanced ways of applying the basics to the problem at hand. I felt like reading this book was worth my time as I began to understand how a seasoned C# programmer thinks when solving a problem. Trey Nash is trying to impart tidbits of experience he has gained in the trenches of writing complex multi-threaded apps. He brings in a lot of object and pattern theory by showing both the "wrong" and "right" way to do something. This clearly shows the benefits of using patterns and good object theory when constructing applications.

I bought this book last Wednesday and figured it would be a decent enough overview of the new language features. I don't want to downplay the job he does covering new langauge features becuase that coverage is superb, but the job he does covering C# fundamentals is so well done that it eclipses everything else. So it's a great book for beginners? Well, probably not. I think beginners would benefit by it but it's not a beginners book by any mean. What I do mean is that he does a really in depth job of covering just about every aspect of C# so that he can show the benefits of the new features as well. I've read over 100 books on .NET in the 7 years I've been working with it and frequently the Go to guy when it comes to exception handling for instance. So I really wasn't expecting to learn anything new here. But stylistically, the points he raises in showing how one could elegantly handle a Transaction rollback scenario is just really brilliant. And that same brilliance is exemplified throughout the book. To that end, the examples in this book are it's real strength. As someone who's written a few books myself, I know how tempting it can be to come up with really simple and overused examples b/c basics aren't much fun to write about. Trey however totally resisted that temptation and I for the life of me can't see a single area that looks like he just 'wanted to get it done'. Everything is seemingly well thought out and written in a way that can clearly make his point clear. He also harkens back to C++ and the fact he has a ton of C++ experience shows through everywhere. It has a feel to it reminiscent of my senior computer science textbooks but without the stuffiness and without coming off as academic. On the contrary, it's the whole aire of advance business scenarios that makes it so cool Now on to the new language features. I've read several books on LINQ and Lambda expressions. And while they are all great, his explanation of Lambda exprssions and the walk down Functional Programming memory lane is priceless. Had I read this book early on, the nuances of Lambda expressions would have been a lot easier to understand. His coverage of LINQ is in depth as well but he manages to really keep on track and show the business aspects of LINQ without every going down the path of sounding like a 'cool new feature cheerleader'. I'll admit I have a pretty strong like of Apress books and have a pretty high expectation with their stuff. When I read Faison's Event-Based Programming : Taking Events to the Limit - I found it to be one of the most compelling and well done books I had read in ages. Internally, I thought it would be a longgg time before I came across a book anywhere near that good. Well, all I can really say is that Trey Nash proved me quite wrong. He exceeded any expectation I had by tenfold and got a lot out of this book - not just in C# terms but across the board.

If you are a software developer who has never seen C# or has seen a little of it, and you want to get acquainted with language in a short amount of time, I definitely recommend this book to you. In about 500 pages, Trey begins by mentioning core aspects of the C# language, such as basic syntax, classes, interfaces, explains some stuff every C# developer should have, like generics, structured exception handling, generics, threading, delegates, and finishes the text by showing the new stuff introduced in C# 3.0; extension methods, lambdas and LINQ. Very good book, not boring at any time, great code samples when needed, it will both help you familiarize with the language and get equipped with the knowledge to explore it to its full capacity. Thanx, Trey and Apress!

I'm generally a developer who likes to thumb through a book and keep it on my bookshelf to be readily available. But the free eBook available till June 2008 is a real bonus. It is a searchable PDF that helps you quickly go to sections you want. The book is spread over 16 chapters and it's about 510 pages, including the index. The book starts off by giving a brief overview about C# and a sample "Hello World" program right away. It then lists out the features that were added in C# 2.0 and the new features in C# 3.0. This I found was good to know as it's sometimes asked on interviews. I was of course looking for the mention of "LINQ" and Nash rightfully describes it as the "Granddaddy" of all the new C# features. I found the pace of the book quite good, but that might have been because I'm already a C# developer. I liked the beginning of chapter 6 when the author describes about "Overloading Operators" - Just because you can doesn't mean you should! He then goes to explain the sentence and about overloading operators throughout the chapter. Finally the LINQ chapter which was the last in the book was 29 pages long. Going through the chapter and trying out a few examples, I realized that I now knew LINQ and could code and speak intelligently about it. That's when the title of the book struck me - "Accelerated C# 2008", which is exactly what it was! This book is a wonderful addition to any bookshelf, especially useful for programmers and developers in any language who want to move to C# relatively quickly.