Microsoft® Visual C#® 2010 Step by Step

I've dabbled in a bunch of different languages. I started with GWBasic and QBasic back in the day, grew into Visual Basic 4 thru 6. Pascal, C/C++ (DOS based) and then went JavaScript, ASP, PHP, etc.As I VB 6 programmer, I tried getting into the .Net languages when they first came out. They really weren't documented at all. It was a bunch of learning from examples or others and from whatever programming texts you got a hold of. So stuck with VB 6 as a result.After years of VB 6, I decided to try to get back into the .Net platforms and figured go for something a bit more robust than VB.net. I decided to opt for C# 4.0.While the differences between the .Net languages are starting to blur C# does have it's own unique plus and minuses. I'm not going to get into them here. The book covers a lot of them. Such as I hope you like case sensitive languages. That is one of my main gripes with this book.While it's a perfectly good text and will help you learn the language, it does jump around a lot. You learn the basics of objects before arrays, for instance. The examples are also spoon fed. I'm a big fan of the Wiley "Visually" series because they showed you the entire block of code in one shot vs a "now add this line" and "now this line" approach which this book uses.On top of that, I've been prefixing my variables for years with their types. This book doesn't and likes to create variables named after their types, with the only difference being the case of the variable (my first gripe).Personally I like doing... int intNumberOfCustomers = 5;The book likes... int numberOfCustomers =5;This is all fine until they create a enum or object named Suit and declare it as... Suit suit;It makes it very hard to read, especially with the spoon feeding approach they use. You get partial code already written so with many of the examples you have to go back and re-read the sample code just so you know what it going on.Personally, I started jumping around a bit after chapter 5, going to chapter 22 to actually do something graphically a bit and then returned to chapter 6. I'm about thru chapter 10 and am thinking of returning to chapter 23 just to feel like I'm accomplishing something. There's a lot of fundamentals here and if you've chosen c# as your first programming language, then good luck. This is not the book for you. If you've already got a few languages under your belt, then this may work for you, but feel free to change the order of the chapters up a bit. When I say fundamentals, I do mean things like creating an array of playing cards and randomly shuffling them. That kind of stuff. This is chapter ten's example project. This is also where arrays are introduced formally. This was cool when I was 12 years old but I've been programming for 20+ years and don't work at a casino so this isn't the best real life exercise.I would recommend combining this book with "Head First C# 2010 (2nd Edition)" after about chapter 10 (provided you read chapter 22 as I did). Another book of interest is "XAML Developer Reference" since this book touches on XAML for the front end but really doesn't seem to go too in depth about it. Heck, the Head first book at least helps you feel like your accomplishing something even if you don't know quite what your doing yet.Another useful book is "C# 4.0 Pocket Reference, 3rd Edition" to help you reference much of the keywords that you're touching on that sometimes gets briefly introduced and then skipped over entirely.Hope this provides insight for anyone looking to buy this book,

I am a novice programmer that had taken one Java programming course in college and I find this book to be very helpful and informative. I've only worked through the first four chapters but so far this book is like a programming 101 class refresher but with c sharp and visual studio 2010. I originally purchased a book titled: "Programming C sharp 4.0" by: Griffiths and this book seemed a little to advanced for a c sharp beginner but I'll definitely be going back to it after finishing Visual C sharp 2010 Step by Step.The only complaint that I have is that I wish that this book included end of chapter type projects for the reader to complete on their own without the aid of the author just to reiterate the important parts of each chapter. To supplement for this, I've been reading each chapter first without sitting in front of my computer and then going back and rereading the chapter while performing the examples in visual studio. I also try to apply what the chapter discusses in examples that I create on my own. But I've never really seen any self help type books that are formatted like an educational textbook so I really can't complain. While reading this book I've also gone onto YouTube and have watched lecture style videos that kind of follow the same logically step by step topics as this book.

I wanted this book badly for my work and to start working on my thesis. I went to a famous book store, B****S & N****s and got the book for 44.99 and came back home happily. I realized i did something wrong & yes, I did not check amazon. I scanned the price on my smartphone and there it was, $ 20 cheaper.Returned the book and then bought this one. I am satisfied with the book as it teaches you from real basic level. I wanted the book mainly for Windows Form Application creation and manipulation. I am satisfied with the techniques handled in this book.

I didn't need to learn the whole language for the small programming fix I was doing, and had everything I needed after working the first one and a half sample problems. This book covers the version of Visual Studio I was using. I used the online version of the book available through my professional society before purchasing the paper version.

I'm still working my way through the book as I have spare time to dedicate to it.I think the book is well written.The examples are well thought-out.However, I'm familiar with a lot of the .NET framework language so no big surprises.I think the book is good for a person with familiarity in programming languages.I'm not sure it would be that good for a person starting from scratch.

I have had a fair amount of experience with Visual Basic, and found this a quite useful guide to a transition to C#. It is thorough, but I found parts of it quite technical and a little over my head. It is not for beginners, but will certainly be useful for those with web oriented experience in other languages, including VB and C++.

The content of the book is great, but if you're a TOTAL beginner, I don't recommend that. I also missed some DIY exercises. The book brings some routines and we have to "complete" the code according to his directions.The worse part is that, in my Fire HD6, the book crashed every 5 minutes or so! It seems like the file doesn't like to be touched or something. If I need to turn several pages at once, it crashes. Anyway, I hope this gets fixed.

Going through this book, absorbing every page, and loving the layout and succinct explanations with logically sequenced presentations, I see that the author DOES know what he's talking about and can transfer that to me. It's why I buy a book. It also does well helping experienced C and C++ programmers to transition into this relevant language.

I like it. It suits me. It's an old-school meticulously detailed step by step walk through C# as the title suggests. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners to programming as I think most would quickly get bogged down in the detail. But for someone like me with a bit of experience who wants a THOROUGH guide to the subject, it's excellent. The style is very readable and the author spares us from wisecracks every other paragraph as some feel the need to do.

I have been programming now for nearly eight years in VB.NET but recently in the past 6 months switched to C#. I am a self taught programmer so often know how to implement code but have a poor understanding of the logic, computer science and terminology behind it.Due to my situation I found most of the subject matter in chapters 1-5 to be very familiar to me and quite simple. However despite this I still managed to learn many new things that self teaching had caused me to overlook, misinterpret or implement wrong making me a better programmer.This book starts off at a very slow pace covering most elements in sufficient detail without getting too complex. Each chapter of the book includes coding examples at the end that are sometimes helpful to explain the topic. However often these practical tests are a little dull or make a hard topic even more complex via the use of un-meaningful class or identifier names.Overall i would say the book is a good purchase if you are a junior to mid level programmer. Some of the chapters could do with reordering as complex topics are often covered before easier subjects. I also found it frustrating to have WPF briefly shown to me in the first 10 pages of the book and then not have it covered again until page 433.I would recommend this book highly but it still has some room for improvement in its next version.

This is an excellent book. I'm not a beginner so it's hard to say if it is the best for a complete novice, but I suspect it's probably the best book you might find to start learning this language.I'm struggling to find any fault with it. However, it does introduce a number of topics "along the way" and within the exercises. So this makes it less helpful as a reference book. But it was never intended as a reference and, being such a large subject anyway, you'll need eventually to supplement it with a more detailed reference.The examples are quite novel as well.

I found this to be a very useful book indeed. My previous programming background was largely IBM mainframe Assembler and as a newcomer to object oriented programming, I have found the book invaluable. I have by no means got through the entire book but I have every confidence that the remainder of it will be as instructive and useful as the parts I`ve already covered. The companion CD-ROM contains code for all the exercises in the book and will free you from lots of typing. You'll need Windows 7 (or Vista SP2) and Microsoft Visual Studio to follow the exercises. You could spend a lot of money buying a charged-for version of Visual Studio but Visual Studio Express can be downloaded for free from Microsoft. I highly recommend this book and the author's engaging style.

Have been in IT (before it was called such) for almost 40 years. Programmed in more languages than I can now remember. Bought this book having not worked in .NET or C# before went on to develop a complete professional looking application that is now in use commercially across multiple sites of a large corporation. Needless to say I also needed a .NET book!