Visual C# 2005 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach

I find myself reaching for this book all the time for answers to common problems. I have never read this from cover to cover but simply use it as reference and it has come through for me 99% of the time. I highly recommend this book.

.NET adoption has increased tremendously in the past few years, and the Framework itself has gone thru changes as well. It is not uncommon to come across an end-to-end solution, from front to back, all developed in the .NET framework. I must say, Microsoft has surprised many of us with the complexity and power of the .NET framework and more specifically the C# programming language. For those of us whom are familiar with other programming languages such as C++ know how difficult and challenging it is to develop enterprise-worthy application without the help of experts in the field. Well, C++ (and Java) have many of those, but .NET is still at its infancies and experts all few and far in-between. Allen Jones and Matthew MacDonald, the authors of Visual C# 2005 Recipes, have certainly crossed the threshold to the "expert zone" and have set a standard to beat and for many to live up to. The text is a collection of small and easy to read sections or recipes tackling a specific problem faced by a developer. The authors start by stating the problem followed immediately by the solution. The section then goes into detail on why the solution will actually solve the given problem. As part of the solution, the authors include a small program that demonstrates the solution to the given problem. The text tackles many important topics of the language such as - Application development: these are basic problem faced by new programmer to the language. C# allows very advanced ways to manipulate the assembly and assembly generation; it is very important for a new developer to the language to know about these capabilities. - Threading and threading management: it is clearly impossible to build an enterprise wide application without the use of threads. As we all know, threading does have its own challenges and even though C# has made it very simple to program using threads, one still needs to understand how tackle problems such synchronization and process management. - Data manipulation and XML processing: Two very detailed chapters are dedicated to these topics. Manipulating data and later meta-data is an essential part of any programmer, and it is part of any programming language. - I/O and the file system: Read and writing files may seem simple, but can quickly get very tricky if you talking about COM ports or manipulating binary files. File manipulation is depicted in detail in this text. XML files and manipulation is also tied to this chapter as the authors discuss the details of how XML is integrated in to the .NET framework. - Database access: A task that all of us have a need for in our day-to-day job as a developer. Just like JDBC is very important to the Java world, .NET has its own set of classes and libraries for DB access. - Networking and network programming: probably one of the most widely speculated and difficult topic in any programming language. Network programming is not an easy task and required much guidance; this topic is w

Much like the 'Cookbooks' series by O'Reilly, the Apress 'recipes' books are a mix of different techniques and common solutions to common problems that you will find. 'Visual C# 2005 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach' by Allen Jones and Matthew McDonald does exactly what it says it will, looking at a wide range of topics and providing over 200 tidbits that will help C# programmers of all levels! This book weighs in at over 550 pages and these tricks are spread out over 14 chapters, covering topics such as data manipulation, application development, XML, database access, graphics, etc. etc. etc. I like this book but like most Apress titles I feel the overall design internally is very lacking. No color, boring layout, and nothing eye catching that really makes this title stand out from others on the market. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this title but when you are faced up against O'Reilly on the bookshelf you need to do something marketing-wise that makes you stand out from the leader. If you are only interested in content pick up this book but expect a dry layout, font, and design that really feels dated. All in all, a thumbs up for C# developers. **** RECOMMENDED

I agree with a previous reviewer in that some duplication exists between this book and Allen Jones' previous C# Cookbook. But this work includes important updates to the recipes relevant to C# 2.0. For example, some of the security and cryptography techniques have changed, and the approach for calling a webmethod asynchronously is different. I therefore definitely recommend this publication to anyone doing professional development in Visual Studio 2005 using C#.

I've been developing with .NET since 2002 and C# has been my primary language for over two years now. In my opinion, Jones and McDonald have assembled a highly useful reference for serious C# developers. There's no filler or MSG here! In each chapter the authors have setup real-world "problems" with accompanying solutions and explanations. I've had this book for several weeks and I've already cooked up quite a few of these "recipes". Since this book is a giant collection of topics I will try to just highlight some of the areas I found especially helpful. The book has something for every level of C# developer. Beginner and intermediate programmers will benefit from the command-line topics in chapter 1. There are some samples here that showed me how to create and run command line applications. Some other great topics for everyone include the StringBuilder or Date format examples. You can put those to use today. Other topics will appeal to intermediate and advanced C# developers. For example, there is an entire chapter on Threads. And the chapters on XML and security have some fantastic walkthroughs. There is also an entire chapter on Windows Forms tricks. Some of these recipes include how to force a ListBox to scroll to the most recently added item and how to restrict a TextBox to accept only specific input. This is something I've needed to do quite often. Some of my favorite walkthroughs include how to print a multi-page document, how to allow partially trusted code to use a strong-named assembly, and how to store a database connection string securely. Also, the chapter on interfaces and patterns is one of my favorites because it gives examples of how I can use these in my real-world applications. If you've been using C# then you've no doubt heard of the ISerializable interface. But do you know how it can benefit you? Well, there's an example using a fictional Employee class. Another common pattern in any program is collections. But do you know how (or why) to create an Enumerable collection? The book has a great explanation of this topic. Because there are sooo many examples in this book I've listed the chapters. The notes in parenthesis are mine and are not inclusive--just a few topics I found especially interesting. CHAPTERS: 1. Application Development (Command line tips and tricks). 2. Data Manipulation (Stringbuilder, Dates, Generic lists). 3. Application Domains, Reflection and Meta Data (Custom attributes). 4. Threads, Processes and Synchronization (Pools, timing threads). 5. Files, Directories and I/O (Create, write to and search files). 6. XML Processing (XML structures, insert nodes, validate schemas). 7. Windows Forms (Add controls programmatically, Autocomplete ComboBox). 8. Graphics, Multimedia and Printing (Fonts, screen capture). 9. Database Access (XML from SQL, secure connection string). 10. Networking and Remoting (Communication using UDP). 11. Security and Cryptography (Limit assembly and class permi