I ordered this product coz in Mexico i just couldn't find it... It seems that the best titles are only in the US and it's a good thing that we can make international orders for them.

This little piece of art it's one of the bests i've had. It's very well explained and also serves as reference for specific methods.

highly recommended

Carlos Silva

I ordered this product coz in Mexico i just couldn't find it... It seems that the best titles are only in the US and it's a good thing that we can make international orders for them.

This little piece of art it's one of the bests i've had. It's very well explained and also serves as reference for specific methods.

highly recommended

Carlos Silva

WAY TOO MUCH FLUFF. Buried in all of this filler text are obfuscated details of the language. There are no real examples that can be followed. I wish I could get a refund because I really feel like I wasted my money.

Not only is this book a complete reference, it has relevant examples. This author seems to have years of real experience and it shows. The sections are logically ordered so that everything i'm looking for is in easy reach. This book has saved me a lot of time.

As an MCAD, I think this book provides excellent coverage of C#, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a reference for the language.

I think some reviews on this book were looking for more of an introductory step-by-step sample format, which this is not. This is most appropriate for those with some programming background, who want to add C# to their list of languages.

As an MCAD, I think this book provides excellent coverage of C#, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a reference for the language.

I think some reviews on this book were looking for more of an introductory step-by-step sample format, which this is not. This is most appropriate for those with some programming background, who want to add C# to their list of languages.

Like many other reviewers, I purchased this book alongside the MS Press 70-536 Training Kit. This book really can only be useful for an experienced C# developer who is looking to fill in any knowledge gaps concerning the language itself. Such a person would be able to spot the numerous errors and move past them without harm done. However, I could not, in good conscience, recommend this to anyone actually seeking to learn the language.

As an example, on page 21, the unary operators are described with examples for each. However, the postfix increment "++" and postfix decrement "--" operators have their examples swapped. Once again, someone already in the know wouldn't be too bothered by this and would figure it out immediately, but for others, it could result in quite a bit of confusion.

As a computer science graduate and a developer, I have learned quite a few languages, including C++, and Java. Many aspects of C# are similar to both of these languages. This book does an excellent job of explaining all the intricacies of the C# language.

Although the book contains more than a handful of errors, it provides a very thorough description of the language. It is fairly easy studying for a technical book, and a must have for anyone studying C#.

I purchased this this book as a supplement to the MCTS 70-536 Self Paced Training Kit. It explains topics in much greater depth, providing a solid comprehension of the language which is often lacking in the test prep book.

As an experianced C++ programmer when I started coding in C# I didn't go through the proper learning curve for C#. Like all seasoned programmers I started coding in C# almost immediately.
I thought "I have been coding for so many years. I know C++ & Java. How hard can C# be?". Down the lane I realized that I am not utilizing the features that language offers, and wanted to see if what I was doing is the effective way to do things. I started searching for a book.

Programming Microsoft Visual C# 2005: The Language - was just what I needed. It covers the language features extensively and I always refer to this book when I am not sure how to do things in C#.

I would strongly recommend this book for all programmers who sail in the same boat as mine.

As an experianced C++ programmer when I started coding in C# I didn't go through the proper learning curve for C#. Like all seasoned programmers I started coding in C# almost immediately.
I thought "I have been coding for so many years. I know C++ & Java. How hard can C# be?". Down the lane I realized that I am not utilizing the features that language offers, and wanted to see if what I was doing is the effective way to do things. I started searching for a book.

Programming Microsoft Visual C# 2005: The Language - was just what I needed. It covers the language features extensively and I always refer to this book when I am not sure how to do things in C#.

I would strongly recommend this book for all programmers who sail in the same boat as mine.

I read the whole book to prepare for the 70-536 exam. Unfortunately the book was written in a hurry and it looks as if there was no time for proof reading - at least not by anyone who knows about C#. Therefore the book is full of mistakes. The more you read, the more it makes you wonder what you can believe without verifing it yourself.
The topics go into a lot of detail and are not very tailored for the exam preparation. Everything from chapter 10 (debugging, advanced debugging, memory management) - a total of 294 pages - are completely off topic and not required at all for the exam. I don't know why Microsoft has it as recommended book for all the MCTS exams.
If you want to prepare for an MCTS exam, you don't need this book. At least not until it was updated and restructured.
The MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft® .NET Framework 2.0--Application Development Foundation is much better. I tries to cover all the topics required by the exam and has a good web site with the errata.
By the way I passed the 70-536 exam. :-)

I read the whole book to prepare for the 70-536 exam. Unfortunately the book was written in a hurry and it looks as if there was no time for proof reading - at least not by anyone who knows about C#. Therefore the book is full of mistakes. The more you read, the more it makes you wonder what you can believe without verifing it yourself.
The topics go into a lot of detail and are not very tailored for the exam preparation. Everything from chapter 10 (debugging, advanced debugging, memory management) - a total of 294 pages - are completely off topic and not required at all for the exam. I don't know why Microsoft has it as recommended book for all the MCTS exams.
If you want to prepare for an MCTS exam, you don't need this book. At least not until it was updated and restructured.
The MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft® .NET Framework 2.0--Application Development Foundation is much better. I tries to cover all the topics required by the exam and has a good web site with the errata.
By the way I passed the 70-536 exam. :-)

There are plenty of C# books available. None of them are cheap. Which one is right for you? If you want a well written up to date complete language refrence that you won't outgrow, then this book is for you. As an expericenced C++ programmer making the leap to C#, this book was extremely helpful. It is a constant companion next to my keyboard.

I almost completed the book. The first 8 chapters are quite ok and good understandable. The chapters therafter are very difficult and are not so pleasant to read. I think they're too advanced for a moderate developer.

This book is CRAWLING with errors in it. The Microsoft Knowledge Base doesn't even cover many of them, either. The errors aren't just typos either. I'll give some examples of why you shouldn't waste your money on this book:

* Page 54: "Volatile Fields"

"Locks are explained in Chapter 9, Threading".

Chapter 9 in the book is "Exception Handling", and nowhere in the book is Threading mentioned or given as a topic.

* The author discusses writing an equals() method for classes and states : "Objects that are equal should have the same hash code. Therefore, equality can be based on comparing hash codes."

This is so wrong it's not funny. Two completely different objects can have the same hashcode and still not be equal. What is he thinking?

* The author writes a paragraph in the book (page 93):

"Hash codes are recyclable. When a reference is garbage collected, the hash code is returned to the available pool. The hash code is then assignable to a future instance. For this reason, you should remove dead objects from any collections."

I do not know what he means by "recyclable" or "available pool", nor what a "dead" object is. I checked the chapter on collections and GetHashCode() is not mentioned anywhere.

* Page 95, code sample is incomplete. The author left it incomplete, yet uses the example (and discusses the details he left out to prove a point -- which happens to be wrong, too). He speaks about MemberwiseClone() and how it does a bit-wise copy of all the fields (including references). This means that a cloned object will be a shallow copy and still point to the same underlying objects for all of the references. Well, he then essentially says that assigning a new string to one of the references in the original object will also change the cloned object's string. This is absurd and I really think he needs to either go back to C# 101 or pay more attention to writing books because people are spending their hard earned money on this stuff.

I seriously doubt the author is incompetent. I just think it's a matter of carelessness. Either way, I wouldn't buy this book if you are looking for accuracy and good guidance. I recommend Jesse Liberty's book (O'Reilly) over this one, however, Jesse's is a bit dated.

This is the book I'll use when I need to know how something in C# works, in detail. 95% of what we do as developers doesn't require in-depth knowledge of the language we're using. But the 5% that does can be the most time consuming and painful. When I'm stuck, and I don't understand WHY C# is doing something a particular way that doesn't make sense to me, this is the book I'll be reaching for! Have I read the whole thing from beginning to end? No. This is the type of book you reach for when you're in trouble, and you have to know the inner workings of C#. It's the book that saves your bacon at 2am when you have a project due. My recommendation: read the debugging chapter first. Not 1 developer in 20 knows the debugger as well as they should. That section alone was worth the price of the book.

Several reviewers apparently felt that the book didn't provide them with a sufficiently simple path to learning C#. Unfortunately, they were not the core audience for this book. From the introduction, it states that this book "is for developers who want a comprehensive explanation of Visual C# 2005, or want to explore a specific aspect of the language." In other words, this book is for experienced developers with a need for detail. If you don't know C#, look elsewhere. If you're sharpening your existing C# skills, or migrating from C# 1.0 to 2.0, this is your book.

So, why 4 stars and not 5? Reference books rarely make 5 stars for me. In fact, I would rate my own reference book (Programming ADO.NET) at 4 stars. This is an excellent reference, and one you'll keep on hand. For me, 5 Stars are reserved for those technical books that you absolutely cannot put down. Those that fill you with energy, excitement and passion. Reference books rarely do that. This one is no exception. It won't convince you to drop everything else and spend your life becoming a C# junkie. Instead, it'll save your job when your stuck on that intractable problem and just can't seem to figure out why.

This is by far the best C# resource available on the market today. It combines concise programming elements and nuances that are vital for anyone developing applications.

If you are an experienced developer you WILL learn something new from this book.

This is a great resource for experienced and less experienced Programmers for learning C# 2005. The book offers clear explanations of many aspects of this language from the basics on up to its more complex components. Especially helpful were the many examples of code included to illustrate the concepts.
Mr Marshall has done an excellent job putting it all together in this book.

This is a great resource for learning C# 2005. Experienced programmers can appreciate this reference with its ground-up approach. I highly recommend this book to those wanting a comprehensive understanding of one of Microsoft's finest object-oriented languages. I come from a programming background in VB .NET. This book made it easy for me to transition and pickup a new language.

This book covers quite a bit of material, including all of the new features in C# 2005. I found it very helpful, except that the language is unnecessarily convoluted in many places. "An interface is a contract and defines the requisite behavior of generalization of types.". "Metadata, which is often described as data about data, formalizes the composition of an assembly." Huh? This stuff is hard enough without language like that. "Eschew obfuscation" as the bumper sticker says.

This book is too dry. Although it is packed with lots of information, you have to already be an expert programmer to fully understand all the topics. It does not explain things in a friendly manner. If you're a professional programmer then you might find this book very helpful, but the casual hobbyist or the beginner may find this book a bit confusing.

The authour has a great knowledge of the language and goes into a lot of depth on the syntax. In purchasing the book I realised it was going to be very code based.
Where I feel this book lacks is relating the concepts to real world applications. For instance, Generics is explained as useful if you don't know the type at compile time, but no explanation of why this would be. If an expert C# developer is using the book, I would expect this wouldn't be an obstacle, but for me I struggle to see where I would apply Generics.
The explanation of metadata and attributes seems a bit thin, once again I was left confused why and how I would use these features.
I found exception handling good, but having made a habit of putting exceptions in my code, I didn't struggle with this concept.
Probably a great book, but is quite advanced in the concepts and assumes the reader has a very large amount of Commercial development experience.
Would also help if the code was commented more. Sometimes difficult to understand what a bit of code is doing, comments make it more readable. Once again, there seems to be an assumption we are all expert coders.
All in all a good book, packed full of info, but difficult to digest. Giving it 3 stars as the authour doesn't make an attempt to explain at my level.

I got this because I am taking the MCTS exam soon, and microsoft recomended this as the book to get. It didn't prepare me for the exam. It is just what it describes itself as, a reference to the C# language, NOT the .net framework. It will only give an overview of the rest of what makes C# a good language.

It isn't a bad book, but it is not designed to teach or really expand your knowledge, just something for you to not have to flip through the miles of unrelated info in the MSDN library trying to figure out how to form a statement. A good book of you already have a really good grasp on the language, otherwise....

This book contains lots of in-depth coverage of the C# language (2.0) that is essential to any serious programmer, especially like the section that compares generics with C++ templates.

I can understand the sentiment of reviewers who said this title is too dry, though. (Un?)fortunately, 90% of programmers just want to get started writing a hello-world app rather than digging into the nitty-gritty of how the underlying system actually works.

This book should be in every programmer's library, especially those who know C/C++ and want to become knowledgeable with C# and .NET. It is full of useful topics and valuable, detailed examples to support learning. I found the debugging topics a nice bonus. Mr. Marshall is definitely an expert in C# and .NET technology.

Big mistake! Part I to Part III which is 60% of the book is basically presenting the C# language specification which contains way too many errors that test your patient. I looked for alternative resources and found the C# Language Specification 1.2 and 2.0 by MS Corp; it's FREE and gives you a clear understanding of the C# language with examples that are error free.

To be clear the book is not a reference of the C# language in any way. If you do not know how to code in C# this book will not help you in the least.

Knowing that, this book is still quite useful. No, you do not need to read this book to be a great programmer in C#. You do not need this book to learn C# syntax. So what is it good for? It will help you understand how C# works as a langauge and where it fits in with .NET. The book doesn't tell you specifically how to use Generics, but rather how generics work within the language and the problems it can solve. It does this for many topics.

The content can at times be considered dry, like the section on MSIL programming. I'm sure most people wonder why you would even consider looking at MSIL code, but it gives you a good understanding of what the JIT compiler is doing and how you can optimize your code.

The book is also very good at introducing topics that are new to C# 2005 like Nullable Types (thankfully this exists now) and showing the differences between 1.x and 2.0. This book will most likely also be useful for the new certification exams. Overall a good read if you are into getting the details of a language.

The author does a great job of laying it all out for you - from the basics, which haven't changed much since C# 1.0, to what's new in C# 2.0, and the lessons learned over the years.

I especially enjoyed the chapters on Visual Studio 2005's support for C#, both from a coding as well as a debugging standpoint. It's clear that the author is a debugging expert.

After 60 pages, I switched to "C# Programming Guide" from Visual Studio Documentation - in my opinion the same contents, but better written, and navigation is easier. Bottom line: waste of money.

People who like detail and enjoy understanding their computer languages richly and fully, will enjoy this book. I'm one of the wierd people...I had a hard time putting it down. Every page has some interesting tidbit. Donis Marshall is a walking C# Library.

This language guide is one of the best written and clearly communicated references I have read.

First, the author is very careful to present correctly defined terms in describing the language. This is very important when trying to get a proper grasp early on when studying and learning about a programming language.

Second, the book is not a casual read. In some ways the author challenges you to think and rise to the occasion because his concepts are so packed with information. It is definitely worth the time.

The chapters on Debugging and especially Advanced Debugging are a real service to the programming community. I have never read any language guide that presented as complete and as practical a picture of debugging as these chapters.

Another very helpful area of this book was the section on Dynamic Invocation in the Metadata and Reflection chapter. This is an area I needed help with, and the book delivered.

I know as I make the transition to understanding and using the additions to C# such as generics, anonymous methods, static classes and such, this book will serve me well.

This language guide is one of the best written and clearly communicated references I have read.

First, the author is very careful to present correctly defined terms in describing the language. This is very important when trying to get a proper grasp early on when studying and learning about a programming language.

Second, the book is not a casual read. In some ways the author challenges you to think and rise to the occasion because his concepts are so packed with information. It is definitely worth the time.

The chapters on Debugging and especially Advanced Debugging are a real service to the programming community. I have never read any language guide that presented as complete and as practical a picture of debugging as these chapters. They will serve me well.

Another very helpful area of this book was the section on Dynamic Invocation in the Metadata and Reflection chapter. This is an area I needed help with, and the book delivered.

I know as I make the transition to understanding and using the additions to C# such as generics, anonymous methods, static classes and such, this book will serve me well.

I have just finished the process to return this book to Amazon and I am grateful that they will let me return it ... This book is so badly written that it is unreadable. Obviously, the book was not properly edited. The material in the book is probably useful, but the terse writing style and unintelligible sentence structure makes it a pain to suffer through. I'm going to seartch for something better.

Being a VERY experienced software architect, developer and trainer, I go through tons of books - both as a reference and to recommend to students. This book is on both of those lists. Some of the other reviews already talk to the strengths of this book so I won't rehash them. I will give one specific example however - chapter 8. This chapter gives, among other things, a great explanation of delegates and how / when to use them. This one needs to be on your shelf as I think you'll find yourself using it time and again.

This is a must have book for the serious .NET developer. I wish I'd gotten it first in getting up to speed on C# & .NET.

The C# language "design" is very ad hoc, a conglomeration of constructs from C++, Java, Visual BASIC, and some new weirdness someone at Microsoft thought necessary. The result is a somewhat Byzantine mish-mash of keywords and constructs. I'm no purist, but good grief, C# "design" is as rag-tag as it gets, and you can't learn it through review of a traditional language reference. Sixty pages of Backus-Naur form notation isn't going to cut it for C#.

As C# is more a heap of constructs than a language, this book is more a heap of notes on those constructs than a language reference. I strongly believe that the "design" of C# is pretty much a matter of whatever the folks on the team at Microsoft felt was useful, and the "C# standard" happens to be whatever the current version of Visual Studio supports, and hopelessly intertwined with the .NET framework and Visual Studio. This book deals with that by going into the basic parts of the .NET framework such as collections for which there is so much ad hoc support in C#. The book also discusses Visual Studio aspects that are important in working efficiently with C#. While it's laughable to call this book a "language reference", it is a more useful work due to bringing in all the extra baggage because that baggage is intrinsic to making decent use of C#.

I think Donis Marshal did a good job of putting together a book that helps experienced C/C++ Windows programmers get up to speed with C#. The scope is comprehensive, and there is little time wasted repeating trivialities. I appreciate the fact that the book has few of the cutesy asides and .NET cheerleading that plagues so many books in this arena.

I don't understand why other reviewers complain about missing source code -- this is not a coding cookbook, and I don't see the need for e-copies of a single bit of the code. The point of the code examples is to illustrate the concepts in the text. I feel Donis Marshall does a good job of keeping the code complete enough for illustration without wasting time and pages fleshing out complete coding examples as appropriate for a reference as opposed to a topical cookbook.

This book is probably best for experienced Windows programmers. I long ago lost the perspective of a newbie, but I think it's probably a bit fast paced for someone who hasn't already spent some years in the trenches doing C/C++ Windows programming.

This book contains excellent explanation of various concepts and has also many code snippets and code samples. But many a times these code snippets have typos so that you are left on your own to figure out what correct code should be. Simillarly code samples accompanying book have also missing code files( a case in point is code sample for Airline Seat in Chapter 4, does not contain code file for Person.cs.)

I always rooted for MS Press books because it contians lot of details which other books many a times do not provide.

Bharat Gadhia

This book resets the bar for solid technical publications. If you are interested in learning C#, or you are just looking for a solid reference book to supplement your knowledge, this is the book for you.

I buy a good many programming books in a given year, and there is nothing more frustrating than buying one that is a disappointment. So, being a critical reader, I can honestly say that Donis Marshall has redefined the term "language reference". He not only covers all the main topics of C# 2.0, he gives you an appreciation for how this language evolved into what it is today. You have to appreciate a guy that can write MSIL code and demonstrate how it correlates to the higher-level language.

The title of this book "The Language" is very appropriate: it offers a very in-depth description of the C# 2.0 language and also covers related topics such as MSIL, Visual Studio 2005 (overview only) and its debugger.

The book is very extensive and every topic (read: language element) is described in extreme detail. Unfortunately this is done using very abstract terms and the entire book looks like a list of syntax definitions. This makes it very tiring to read and the massive number of senseless lines ("Instance members are inexorably linked to an instance and are accessible from the point of instantiation.") and grammar errors compund this.

If you are looking for a very comprehensive language syntax description, I highly recommend this book. If you are looking for a reference guide to help you program...look further.

This book is great. I have been reading the chapters on Reflection and Debugging, and I'm amazed at the information that this book has over the other books that I've read.
I was looking for an author who could describe generics and anonymous methods, and provide meaningful examples, and Donis Marshal gave me exactly what I was looking for in this book.
I bought this book and several other C# 2.0 books, and what I found is that this book is the one that I contantly come back to. I hope to see more titles from this author.