I guess this book does what it intends to do, teach you C# in 24 1-hour lessons. But I would recommend it only for programming beginners.

If you know a lot of other languages as I did, reading about FOR loops and arithmetic operators doesn't offer anything. There are several errors, but these may have been fixed in the newer edition.

The C# coding techniques are great. But I will now have to look for a more advanced C# programming book.

This book available in Online Reader form. I don't reccomend it. The viewer gets stuck, skips pages (requires restaring the browser) and even submitting a bug report generates a response from Amazon that "There is an error...".

Biggest problem with this book is the online reader lets you zoom in only 1 time which makes reading the example code impossible.

Very good book to get started with VC#
The book was a little to slow in the first 2 parts

This product did not deliver after all the good reviews I read on amazon. The book is clearly translated from the visual basic equivalent, as a result certain exercises have hints that are putting you on the wrong foot and dont make any sense at all. The book left me with alot of questions especially on the syntax of the language, and frustrated me with its lack of providing insight on what I was doing.

I have been programming for a very long time with a lot of VB6 experience. Before that I came from VB3, Delphi 1 and Clipper. I didn't need the programming aspect, I just needed to get acquainted with the C# syntax and the VS2005 IDE.

This book is well organized and easy to follow. It delves deep enough into each main area far enough to show you what to do and where to look for more information. Being a guitar player myself, I also enjoyed the fact that there were guitars, amps and pedals used as .jpg examples!

No complaints here!

I have started learning programming about 6 months ago, reading several books. All the books have been on different programming languages at a beginners level.
This book is definitely geared towards someone that wants to learn programming with Visual C#. I think this book is one of the best I have ever read. I am finding myself wanting to pick this book up and continue learning.

I would totally suggest this book to anyone.
Great Book!!

I have read many computer books in the past. This one has got to be ONE of the BEST learning book. It teaches you how to navigate in the Microsoft Visual C# environment, not to be afraid to experiment and make the best use of the interface. The text are concise. The examples are great for learning. The screenshots are accurate. My book came with the Microsoft Visual C# Express CD (no need to download). Money Well-Spent. Knowledge well-learned. No Pain. Just Gain.

I wish the author Mr. James Foxall would also write a book for the "Microsoft Visual Web Developer".

Unlike all the other C# books, reading this book is like having an instructor and friend sitting next to you. I highly recommend it for anyone who has been frustrated trying other avenues of learning C# 2005.

Foxall takes what you need, takes out what you don't and packs it all in this book. You won't become an expert in C# in 24-hours, but you will certainly know you way around the language and the development environment by reading this book. From there, you can either learn by doing or pick up a more advanced book and go from there.

The author takes the GUI development road and teaches you by example. A frame here, a timer there, event handling, some C# programming and you got yourself a handy little application that gives you a flavor of what it means to use Visual C#. If you have no previous programming experience, or you are simply interested in C#, this is the text you want to pick up and finish in a weekend. I have used Java for a number of years, so the transition to C# was much easier for me.

This book specially focuses on the Development Environment and such things as how you go about setting up a project or how you debug your application using the built-in debugging facility. Microsoft Visual Studio has improved greatly in the recent years, but that also means that it has gotten more complicated to use over the years. Foxall breaks down the "barrier to use" and walks the readers thru how things are setup and configured. The book is also accompanied with MS Visual C# Express Edition, which is a watered down version of Visual Studio but it has everything you need to get started with the development environment.

Author delves into some more advanced features of the .Net framework towards the end of the book and talks about how everything fits together. This is a great "next step" for those of you who will go on to do use C# for more advanced projects.

All and all, this is one great beginner book. There are plenty of examples and tips throughout the book that will benefit anyone who is interested in the C# language or the .Net development environment as a whole.

Foxall takes what you need, takes out what you don't and packs it all in this book. You won't become an expert in C# in 24-hours, but you will certainly know you way around the language and the development environment by reading this book. From there, you can either learn by doing or pick up a more advanced book and go from there.

The author takes the GUI development road and teaches you by example. A frame here, a timer there, event handling, some C# programming and you got yourself a handy little application that gives you a flavor of what it means to use Visual C#. If you have no previous programming experience, or you are simply interested in C#, this is the text you want to pick up and finish in a weekend. I have used Java for a number of years, so the transition to C# was much easier for me.

This book specially focuses on the Development Environment and such things as how you go about setting up a project or how you debug your application using the built-in debugging facility. Microsoft Visual Studio has improved greatly in the recent years, but that also means that it has gotten more complicated to use over the years. Foxall breaks down the "barrier to use" and walks the readers thru how things are setup and configured. The book is also accompanied with MS Visual C# Express Edition, which is a watered down version of Visual Studio but it has everything you need to get started with the development environment.

Author delves into some more advanced features of the .Net framework towards the end of the book and talks about how everything fits together. This is a great "next step" for those of you who will go on to do use C# for more advanced projects.

All and all, this is one great beginner book. There are plenty of examples and tips throughout the book that will benefit anyone who is interested in the C# language or the .Net development environment as a whole.

I've been through MANY introductory C# books over the past few weeks, including online and video tutorials. So far, this title is the best of the bunch.
It's very interactive and more importantly has exercises at the end of each hour; Very easy to read, even humorous at times.
If you DONT want to spend a semester's-worth of time learning C# then get this book. Otherwise, I'd suggest Prentiss-Hall's version; but be warned, it's designed as a 2 semester college lvl book.

The "in 24 Hours" series breaks down subject matter into 24 chapters that should take you around an hour to complete. If this style is one that appeals to you, and if you're looking to figure out Visual C# 2005, then you're in luck with Sams Teach Yourself Visual C# 2005 in 24 Hours, Complete Starter Kit by James Foxall.

Contents:
Part 1 - The Visual C# Environment: Jumping in with Both Feet - A Visual C# 2005 Programming Tour; Navigating Visual C# 2005; Understanding Objects and Collections; Understanding Events
Part 2 - Building a User Interface: Building Forms - The Basics; Building Forms - Advanced Techniques; Working with Traditional Controls; Using Advanced Controls; Adding Menus and Toolbars to Forms
Part 3 - Making Things Happen - Programming: Creating and Calling Methods; Using Constants, Data Types, Variables, and Arrays; Performing Arithmetic, String Manipulation, and Date/Time Adjustments; Making Decisions in Visual C# Code; Looping for Efficiency; Debugging Your Code; Designing Objects Using Classes; Interacting with Users; Working with Graphics
Part 4 - Working with Data: Performing File Operations; Working with Text Files and the Registry; Working with a Database; Controlling Other Applications Using Automation
Part 5 - Developing Solutions and Beyond: Deploying Applications; The 10000 Foot View
Index

A nice thing about this book is it's a complete learning solution. The CD in the back has the Express Edition of Visual C# 2005 on it, so the purchase of this book gives you the complete environment you need to get started. Looking at the contents, you can see that the primary emphasis in the beginning is creating the graphical elements of the interface. Most of the "programming" consists of filling in dialog and property boxes to make the interface behave as desired. You have to get into Part 3 before you learn how to actually code the C# language. For someone brand new to programming, this is probably a decent idea. Get the person doing and creating something quickly, even through it many not do much of anything in an overall context. As an experienced developer, I kept wondering "but what does the language look like and how does it work?" Personally, I would have preferred the material to be in reverse order, but I'm possibly not the intended audience for this particular style and approach.

Even with that minor nit, I still think the material is solid. If I knew someone who was computer-savvy but hadn't done much programming, I'd have no hesitation to suggest this title if their desire was to learn Visual C#.

If you're an experienced programmer that is wanting to learn Visual C# as another language then this is probably not the best book for you.

If you're totally new to pgramming this book fits well. Foxall does a fantastic job of teaching you skills gradually. He doesn' thit you all at once with the concepts and theories of object oriented programming and so forth, but he introduces it to you little by little over each chapter so that it's much easier to learn.

You learn how to write practical and useful programs, which is what allows new programmers to keep their interestin the subject.

For those who know nothing about C# and want to dive right in, this is the book for you. Mr. Foxall does a great job explaining the concepts in his book without oversaturating you.

Foxall gives one of the latest in Sam's Teach Yourself series. Where each chapter is considered do-able in one hour, and there are 24 chapters. A gimmick that perhaps is a little confining on both the author and the reader. The author has to pigeonhole sufficient material into a chapter to meet this constraint. While if the reader takes too long to assimilate a chapter, she might wonder about her abilities.

Anyhow, I recommend that you ignore this one chapter-one hour formalism. Just read the chapters as you would any other text on Visual C#. The book's pedagogy is heavily directed towards GUI building in that language. That is clearly the book's strength. The programs tend to be event-driven. Where you might hook up a listener to a widget, and then code actions into it, for when an appropriate event happens in the widget.

The book does teach about pure computational aspects. Like about using variables, arrays and conditional logic. Plus about the intrinsic ideas in object oriented programming. But these appear in the second half of the book. After the UI discussions. The computational explanations are relatively sparse. Little indepth is done with these.

Also, the chapter on OO is the most important in the book. The OO concepts are absolutely crucial and you need to get these down thoroughly. Here especially is where the one hour per chapter idea is deleterious. Spend as much time as you need on this chapter. It is this that will be the foundations of any complex coding that you will later do. Not the UI details.