C# for Dummies [With CDROM]

I revisited this book after about a year, and took the time to really read the first 100 pages. In particular, the author's introduction to OOP via C# classes as data structures first, and as more complex objects containing data and methods second, helped me really understand this concept --- maybe for the first time. His example programs are very clever and deceptively simple at first glance. I think the most valuable aspect to his perspective is he obviously has a talent for teaching the "old school" imperative coders, that need hand holding with the new object paradigm. (Like me)I really liked Randy's other book on C++, although the "C++ for Dummies" moniker is a riot. There aren't any dummies doing C++, of that you can rest assured!

I bought "C# for Dummies" for myself and "C# and Game Programming" for my son.

Although the "Dummies" title implies a "Beginner" book, this book falls into the "Beginner to Intermediate Developer" range. This is a good book for Visual Basic developers who want to make the conversion to C# or for the beginner. Like all Dummies series, there are ample examples and the author does a great job of explaining the C# language. Windows forms are covered in Chapter 17 and 18 but there is no discussion about Web development or using C# with Active Server Pages (ASP).Starting in Chapter 6 (Collecting Data - The Class and the Array) there are several really annoying errors, for example, on page 105 the author uses "for (int i = 0; i < 11; i++)" to iterate thru a 10 element array. In the section below this (Array bounds checking), the author uses exactly the same code and says this will fail. The first code should be "for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)". These errors are scattered through out the book. Still this is a good book and I would highly recommend it.

This book is a MUST for absolute beginners. It contains more code examples than any of the other ten C# books combined (I own the O'Reilly and Wrox books also). Furthermore, the Visual Studio IDE bonus chapter (on the CD in pdf format) is worth the price of the book itself. The principle strengths of this book are the disciplined coding techniques modeled by the author, the excellent inline documentation techniques modeled by the author and how this book is strictly focused on C# basics (not ASP.NET, Web Services, ADO.NET, etc.). Get this book if you want to learn C# well in a very short time.

C# For Dummies claims to take novice programmers into the world of C#. That's probably a stretch--if you haven't programmed before, I suspect you would have a tough time keeping up. But as an experienced VB programmer moving to C#, I have found it quite helpful. Easy, breezy read, with a focus on the language itself (rather than .Net framework classes or Visual Studio). Most programs are console apps, although the book walks the reader through creation of a Windows app. Only negatives: Code on CD doesn't always match up with cook listings (as at p. 261). Also, like most Dummies books, it's a bit light on learning exercises for the reader. I'm using the book as a general introduction to the language, before I dig into more detailed texts.