Judging from the reviews here, I probably would not recommend this book if you have never programmed (or used "Windows-like" IDE) before. But if you are an experienced C++/Java programmer new to C# and comfortable with the Windows programming environment, I think this is a pretty good place to start.

Pros:
Good overview of C# 2.0. A much smaller book compared to many books out there. Easy to read (you can probably read/skim through the first 200 pages in a couple of hours).

Cons:
You will need other books to supplement this one to learn the language well but I think it's typical.
Probably the same complaint I have against all computer books - still too long for a beginner's book. It's still 500+ pages long.

Note:
The book does not cover WPF, WCF, WF and LINQ since it is written for C# 2005.

For references, I own:
Troelsen's Pro C# with .Net 3.0, Michaelis's Essential C# 3.0, Hejlsberg's The C# Programming Language 2e.

although the book has lots of good ideas, it lacks examples. It is short on explanation being a beginners level book, the book would need another 100 pages of more elaboration and explanation.

I have read a number of programming books for a variety of languages and they do not come much better than this. All the topics are explained in an easy to understand and concise manner. This book stays away from many of the mistakes of other books i.e. it is not too dry and academic and there is no project going on throughout the book that you have to keep up with. This book is an easy read and covers the topics in sufficient depth for most software developers.

This contains what you'd expect to learn about the basics of C#. It does not contain anything on MDI forms, Redo/Undo, or working with MDI dynamic Menus. It is just the basics. I'll sell you mine if you really want a copy.

This is a very friendly yet challenging work on learning C# with many references to C++ as well. The examples are easy to follow and understand and motivate the subjects very well.

After two months with only a little experience with VB.NET and help from this book I am already becoming an advanced programmer. I highly recommend this book for beginners.

How do you rate a technical book? This is my first shot at it so bear with me!!
This is the Microsoft Visual C# book written by Mark Sharp.
So far everything in the book seems correct. The printing is readable and the pages have not disintegrated or fallen out of the book.
I bought this book from Amazon with no tax and free shipping. (That beats trying to find it locally.) The shipment arrived when it was supposed to arrive and what was delivered was what I ordered.
That is two thumbs up and 5*'s!!!
:)

While making a user's transition from C++ and Java very convenient and easy, its most prevalent drawback is it's disregard for multidimensional arrays. This book must be used in conjunction with the included CD to understand the content, making its portability very limited. The software on the CD also must be installed and individual projects can't just be coppied from the CD.

The book teaches the material with frequent references to Java, C, and C++ equivalent topics to ease the reader's transition to a new language while not making the material confusing for the new programmer. It teaches through constant examples and allows the reader to work from pre-made projectsthat are missing required code or view the completed projects for referencing. The book goes from the ground up with the C# language, discussing advantages to topics like structs versus classes and indexers. The book also goes beyond the main programming topics to discuss creating web applications and managing data with sql server. Although not the most in depth text, this book is good for those quite familiar with other programming languages as well as those interested in learning the language very quickly and still feel well informed on how to create applications for Windows in Visual Studio 2005.

Excellent to the beginner. Very clear and good samples. I suggest, J.Sharp must write the next level.

the author explains in easy to understand terminology, and provides examples of bad practice (or ways without the technique that he is to introduce) and then show the right approach.

I am a beginner, therefore, can not comment on the technical merits of the book. However, I will comment that the author expresses poorly and writes worse. It is painful to follow his convoluted logic, and time consuming to read poorly constructed sentences strewn throught the book.

I definitely would not recommend this book for the beginners.

I am a beginner, therefore, can not comment on the technical merits of the book. However, I will comment that the author expresses poorly and writes worse. It is painful to follow his convoluted logic, and time consuming to read poorly constructed sentences strewn throught the book.

I definitely would not recommend this book for the beginners.

John Sharp is the man when it comes to learning C#. He also did a great job laying out what Object Oriented Programming is all about. Very good teacher and another great Technical Book.

This book is good for both the novice as well as for people who want a better overall understanding of C#.

This is one of the best start up books for people that are new to C#, Visual Studio 2005 and the .Net Frameworks, and/or are coming from a VB 6 background, with little or no experience with true object oriented programming concepts.

All the C# fundementals are covered, in a clear and easy to understand presentation.

Basic object oriented concepts are presented in an early chapter with simple examples, and then are later expanded upon with more detailed examples showing the real power of inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism, and interfaces.

The book also includes useful introductions to the Visual Studio 2005 IDE, Winforms, ASP.Net, ADO.Net, and Web Services, with accompanying labs for each.

Perhaps this book scores it's highest points with it's simplified discussion of delegates and events, a topic which is unfortunately usually made needlessly obtuse by most C# books.

I wish I could have started with a great beginners book like this when I entered the .Net world back in 2002.

I'd recommend this book to anybody new to C# and object oriented programming. After finishing this book, add to your object oriented skill set with the indespensible 'Head First Design Patterns' and you'll have a solid foundation for advancing to the next level of C# and .Net programming.

This is one of the best start up books for people that are new to C#, Visual Studio 2005 and the .Net Frameworks, and/or are coming from a VB 6 background, with little or no experience with true object oriented programming concepts.

All the C# fundementals are covered, in a clear and easy to understand presentation.

Basic object oriented concepts are presented in an early chapter with simple examples, and then are later expanded upon with more detailed examples showing the real power of inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism, and interfaces.

The book also includes useful introductions to the Visual Studio 2005 IDE, Winforms, ASP.Net, ADO.Net, and Web Services, with accompanying labs for each.

Perhaps this book scores it's highest points with it's simplified discussion of delegates and events, a topic which is unfortunately usually made needlessly obtuse by most C# books.

I wish I could have started with a great beginners book like this when I entered the .Net world back in 2002.

I'd recommend this book to anybody new to C# and object oriented programming. After finishing this book, add to your object oriented skill set with the indespensible 'Head First Design Patterns' and you'll have a solid foundation for advancing to the next level of C# and .Net programming.

Extremely good explanations, I really liked the way the author explained the delegates and events, it just helps you picture it. Really easy to follow for begginers or Visual Basic developers.

I expected it to cover Generic Collections though, I was surprised the author left it out.

I'm on Chapter 17 of this book (only 11 to go!) and have felt compelled to let other potential readers know what an excellent book this is. Each chapter is well organized and incremental in its approach. The exercises are relevant and purely optional. The book has been organized so that it flows smoothly even if you skip over the practice sections within each chapter. Another aspect of this book that appeals to me is that it presents a number of different ways of achieving the same result and suggesting why one coding strategy might be more clear or efficient than another.

Most of the examples are straightforward, although there are times when the author chooses a code sample that is unnecessarily confusing and obfuscates the purpose of the lesson. But a careful read and re-read of these is all that is required. Another comment I would make is that in his code samples, he places variable declarations at the botttom of the class rather than at the top. As such, when you start reading a class example, be sure to jump to the bottom first so that you know where certain variables come from.

This book is informative, and easy to read. The file examples are excellent ways learn from a "hands on appraoch." The first three chapters are built for new programmers, the next three for inexperienced C or C++ programmers, the next four for programmers transitioning from C, C++, or Java, and the rest is for finer details. I am an exprienced, professional C and C++ programmer. Without this book some of the concepts for C# "unsafe" code and other concepts would have been difficult to grasp.

I had previously programmed as a hobby in Borland Delphi but had no knowledge of C#. I have been impressed with John Sharp's book and would buy it again. After making it thru the 1st ten chapters I feel like I have a good grasp of C# basics and have been able to make good progress on a C# project for mutual fund analysis. With the wealth of C# info available on the internet I debated the need for a book. However I found this book with it's clear and comprehensive style to be invaluable and a real time saver in learning the C# language.

I am a software developer with 20+ years experience. I wanted to move from VB, Powerbuilder and Access to C# and .NET. This is an excellent book to take you from the bottom up. It is not the end of the line but an excellent intro and the examples / exercise are very detailed and clearly explained. I suggest that you programmers out there try and play around outside the exercises to get a better handle of things. Also if you are using MS Visual C# Express 2005+ you will get lost on few steps since his exercise uses a slightly different version, but nothing you couldn't figure out in couple of minutes. Recommended

This book help me a lot in terms of the basics of C# language and introduction to object oriented programming (oop), it also help me
to have a deeper understanding in the .Net Framework using C#.

It's good for beginners and intermediate programmer like me to
expand their knowledge to this programming languages.

I will use my gain knowledge in preparation for my MCP Certification
in Microsoft Visual C#. Net

Thank you! to the Author/s who work on this book for sharing their
wisdom to me.

Good day and to all Letranites .. Arriba !!

If you're looking for readily available instructions on C# to follow, this is the book. It's easy to understand and may be appropriate for first time C# programmers. If you need to develop codes from scratch given some specification, this book may not fulfill such need.

I paid for standard shipping of this book, since I needed it for a class I was currently taking. I don't believe that I saved any time over opting for the free shipping. The book is great reference for C#...but Amazon's standard shipping is worthless if your order is over $25.

If you have some background in programming, any background, than you shouldn't have any trouble with the content of this book. It does a fantastic job of explaining the topics as they are presented instead of directing you to an appendix as many other programming texts do.

The examples can be difficult to follow without having installed the CD but fortunately they are available for download if you have misplaced your CD or don't want to crack open the little cardboard sleeve (for those that think they may wish to return it this is a great idea).

All in all this one of the better programming text I have read. Quality writing that didn't put me to sleep (which always counts double).

I was very impressed on the condition of the book. I will continue to purchase books from you because of your service.

This is an excellent resource for learning C#/.NET. It covers the basics of the language and then eventually heads into more advanced topics such as ADO.NET, ASP.NET, etc. Like with any book, the more you know coming in, the more you can take advantage of it, but I would say that even someone new to programming can get a lot out of this book.

Good Stuff:
1) Each topic in parts 1-4 is covered in a step by step fashion with plenty of examples to help you learn by doing.
2) Excellent summary for each chapter highlighting key points in a tabular format including mini code examples. This is by far one of the best way of doing a summary in a programming book I've seen.
3) You can do 99% of the examples with MS Visual C# Express Edition which is free. So you don't need to go out and buy Visual Studio 2005.
4) The books is broken up into 6 parts and this organization is well thought out. Parts 1-4 pretty much cover the language, Part 4 covers how to use Windows Forms with C#, Part 5 covers how to use ADO.NET with C# and finally Part 6 covers ASP.net.
5) Good topic coverage for a beginner book.

Stuff that could have been done better:
1) My primary frustration with this book is the many typographical errors. The errata list is bigger than what I would like to see and it wasn't even exhaustive. I found many errors not on the errata and even though I submitted them, I got no response. Make sure you print out the errata and keep it with u while u read.
2) There is no coverage of how to use C# with XML, nor is there coverage on File I/O, streams etc. It would have been good to have chapters on these topics. I think they're more important that covering ASP.NET.
3) Part 5 (ADO.NET) is not that good. The way that ADO.NET is explained is not as step by step as the previous 4 parts. The order in which things are done does not lend well to explaining the concepts. For ex: the first thing the author does is have you run a command line SQL script to modify a pre-existing database. Some more basic parts of ADO.NET such as how to create a database from scratch in Visual Studio are not covered at all. You would think that this is what would be done first. The chapters on ADO.NET could have been written in a much better way, preferably one that assumes little to no prior knowledge of a database. Nonetheless, to have ADO.NET coverage at all in a book at this level is good.
4)Part 6 covers ASP.NET. There are four chapters on this topic which quite qood considering this is not an ASP.NET book. Don't expect to get a good understanding of ASP.NET however, as ASP.NET cannot be understood well in such brevity.

Bottom Line:
I recommend adding this book to your arsenal if you plan on learning C#. It covers the language in adequate detail in a step by step fashion. [...]

This is an excellent resource for learning C#/.NET. It covers the basics of the language and then eventually heads into more advanced topics such as ADO.NET, ASP.NET, etc. Like with any book, the more you know coming in, the more you can take advantage of it, but I would say that even someone new to programming can get a lot out of this book.

Good Stuff:
1) Each topic in parts 1-4 is covered in a step by step fashion with plenty of examples to help you learn by doing.
2) Excellent summary for each chapter highlighting key points in a tabular format including mini code examples. This is by far one of the best way of doing a summary in a programming book I've seen.
3) You can do 99% of the examples with MS Visual C# Express Edition which is free. So you don't need to go out and buy Visual Studio 2005.
4) The books is broken up into 6 parts and this organization is well thought out. Parts 1-4 pretty much cover the language, Part 4 covers how to use Windows Forms with C#, Part 5 covers how to use ADO.NET with C# and finally Part 6 covers ASP.net.
5) Good topic coverage for a beginner book.

Stuff that could have been done better:
1) My primary frustration with this book is the many typographical errors. The errata list is bigger than what I would like to see and it wasn't even exhaustive. I found many errors not on the errata and even though I submitted them, I got no response. Make sure you print out the errata and keep it with u while u read.
2) There is no coverage of how to use C# with XML, nor is there coverage on File I/O, streams etc. It would have been good to have chapters on these topics. I think they're more important that covering ASP.NET.
3) Part 5 (ADO.NET) is not that good. The way that ADO.NET is explained is not as step by step as the previous 4 parts. The order in which things are done does not lend well to explaining the concepts. For ex: the first thing the author does is have you run a command line SQL script to modify a pre-existing database. Some more basic parts of ADO.NET such as how to create a database from scratch in Visual Studio are not covered at all. You would think that this is what would be done first. The chapters on ADO.NET could have been written in a much better way, preferably one that assumes little to no prior knowledge of a database. Nonetheless, to have ADO.NET coverage at all in a book at this level is good.
4)Part 6 covers ASP.NET. There are four chapters on this topic which quite qood considering this is not an ASP.NET book. Don't expect to get a good understanding of ASP.NET however, as ASP.NET cannot be understood well in such brevity.

Bottom Line:
I recommend adding this book to your arsenal if you plan on learning C#. It covers the language in adequate detail in a step by step fashion. [...]

I liked this book a lot until I got to page 164. The text then skipped to page 197. I know I could get a replacement, but I have written notes all through the first part of the book. Buyer beware; check it out before you start reading.

I liked this book a lot until I got to page 164. The text then skipped to page 197. I know I could get a replacement, but I have written notes all through the first part of the book. Buyer beware; check it out before you start reading.

Overall I really liked this book. Though, I've found that in learning C# -- you'll require an assortment of reference and guidance books to successfully complete your journey. Mr Sharp does a great job in the early sections of the book and his step-by-step examples are also good.

The section on indexers was extremely disappointing as the examples were very, very abstract. Also weak, the delegates/events section was extremely brief. I'm happy that I've read the book, but it alone will not prepare you to writing robust production level code. Overall I really liked this book, but for upper level C# concepts you will need to look elsewhere.

This will be a good book for a beginner to programming itself, let alone C#.

An experienced programmer in any language will find this book fairly shallow. The book covers many basic topics including some programming basics but doesn't go into detail on any aspect or feature of C#.

Extremely helpful for starting up C#. Good beginners reference book for those using Microsoft Visual Studio Express Edition.

This book elaborate every step in details. You seldom find a book which explains in detail and yet for beginner. this is the reason i rate 5.

anyway, for those developers who have some experience in c# and wish to look for more advance topic. this is not the book for you.

This was a good book, but I thought they introduced some complex concepts too early in the book. (Overloaded operators come immediately to mind.) Each concept is covered well, but it isn't really step by step. If you already know C#, then this will get you up to speed on the new material quickly, but for a C# beginner, there are better books.

I am a C++ coder doing white box QA testing, after reading about C# thought it might prove useful in developing QA Tools for testing backend processes, got this book on a whim and it has proved to be very useful, well written, and very good examples, although I have a OOP background I found the chapters on OOP could be helpful for the beginner as well as us "know it alls," and would recommend this to my colleges and friends.

I'm a long time developer with even a Microsoft Visual Basic .NET exam successfully completed but I wanted to transition over to C#. In preparing for the VB.NET exam I had some decidedly mixed experiences with the Microsoft Step By Step books - so much so that I tended to avoid them. I have a number of good books on C# but I was actually able to look at this before I purchased it here on Amazon. I am about halfway through the book and will tell you that I am very impressed. The material starts easily and ramps up fast to where I feel I am into the substance of the material and its not over my head. The book appears to cover the full range of material that I think I need to be able to move over into Visual Studio 2005 to begin developing my own personal commercial web site. Why a non-programmer would ever get into C# .NET programming is beyond me but for anybody else with any kind of programming background and who wants to go into C# and the .NET development environment I highly recommend this book.