Pro C# 2010 and the .NET 4 Platform (Expert's Voice in .NET)

To begin, I will say that I did not finish this book, however it wasn't because I didn't like the book. I was about 1,000 pages in when I decided to switch to Perl (C# just isn't a good language if you work in a Linux environment). This book covers a lot of content as you can see by its size (even more so once you see actually see it). The reason I give this book 3 stars is because I am not crazy about how this content is delivered. I just came from reading C++ Primer Plus (5th Edition) by Stephen Prata and the styles of these two books are very different. This is another big thing about this book, it is NOT targeted towards beginners. So if you are just starting out you will definitely want to pick something lighter so you can get a better grasp of the programming concepts. This book assumes that you have a lot of prior knowledge and not just about programming languages. I was pretty lost in the database chapters about ADO.NET because I have no studied relational databases. Learning C++ first, you also get a better appreciation for C# and what it does in the background for you. So for someone at an intermediate programming level I was able to understand everything, but it takes a lot more effort and sometimes requires re-reading a section several times. One big reason why I would take away a star or two is for the grammar, which is odd and distracts you from the content. This author loves the phrase "To be sure, " at the beginning of almost every sentence, and I am yet to understand what this means at all. Overall it just did not flow as smooth as my previous programming book. Another thing that I did NOT realize before buying it, is that there are NO practice exercises at the end of the chapters. I think doing is the best way to learn so reinforcing your knowledge at the end of a chapter is vital to retaining the information, so I did miss that part. This book WILL teach you C# and the .NET framework, and it moves at a fast pace. The content is there so if you try hard you will be able to learn. I wish I did have a chance to finish the book, as I really bought it for the GUI-based WPF lessons, but I am still able to write decent C# programs so no harm done. While I think the book could have been written better, it still does it's job and I do not regret buying it.

There are plenty of good reviews for this book so I will just try to supplement the key aspects not already addressed by others.First and foremost -- the code examples in this book have a very high level of accuracy. Unlike so many other technical books, someone actually reviewed the code and validated it before publication. Perhaps this is due to the book being a follow-on edition.Secondly -- I found this book had just the right balance of concept and application. The author writes clearly and has a great instinct for when to go deep and when to gloss over a topic (my pov anyway). He gives you some history, the concepts, and then typically gives you a very practical hands-on example to try out. Now, I'll grant you that many of the examples are simple console programs but that's the point; you get to see how a particular concept works in a basic example. Applying the concept and hands-on experience to the real world in a Windows, WPF or web-based application is rather easy once you have the building blocks to work from and this book's examples give you just that.I too had a Kindle edition of the book to work with and can affirm that the code examples are pictures which can be difficult to read at times and prevents you from doing a copy/paste effort to get the code replicated in your own example. However, all the code is available for download from the publisher's web site so it is easy to get some of the longer blocks of code in copy/paste format for your own consumption.Having come from a VBA background and starting point I found this book to be the best of all the books I've read on C# instruction and the OOP world. For those with a similar background, I would also recommend reading through The Object-Oriented Thought Process by Matt Weisfeld first. These two books will complement each other well as you step into the OOP world.

This is by far the best of six five-star rated C# books and three more on .NET & VisualStudio that I've found.It has a great index (though there are entries for mere mentions of a term in example code).I've used it to research many fine points and found it to be VERY complete. It is massive, but I've found pages of information on topics that aren't even mentioned, or receive only few words of passing attention, in the other books.It is organized into significant tutorial sections, but the text, examples, and index (Did I mention that it has a GREAT index?) make it excellent as a reference book, as well.This is a massive 700-page book. Although a new programmer would find this useful, it's sheer size would likely be intimidating and one wouldn't likely proceed sequentially through it in tutorial-fashion more than a hundred pages or so. However, for almost any topic that is new to you, turn to the appropriate section and you will find a great tutorial with lots of examples and side-notes. The examples are short and to the point -- it's not filled with pages of code listings as many books are.My background is over 45 years of professional embedded and distributed software development in almost as many languages (including 20 years with Smalltalk, C++, Java, and Python), but only three months in C#, .NET, and VisualStudio. This book has been a welcome addition to my library, and is usually right at my elbow.

I wanted to learn C# as my first programming langauge, I have done software development in college with Visual Basic, but that was very very basic, and Visual Basic didn't appeal to me (I enjoy coding, as I know some HTML and CSS). My friend had this book, and he let me borrow it, so I could see what it was like before I bought it, and I feel that I was too comlicated and too long for the information it gave (it took forever to explain one little thing, which inevitably caused the information to go straight from my head when I got up to the next little thing).I am not going to say it is a terrible book, because it may not be for someone more advanced, but for me, a beginner, it is just too long and gives too much irrelevant information for a beginner to understand.I have however found C# Yellow Book 2010 by Rob Miles, very good for absolute beginners, and as it is free, there is not much to complain about.

As someone with a knowledge of various languages and wanting to pick up C# quickly I found this book invaluable.It covers all the mains areas that you could require and provides code to back it up which I find easiest to follow. Generally the book is quite concise and does not babble on endlessly for no reason which some I have found do.All in all a great book but I think that next time I will buy the e-book version as it is massive and a nightmare to carry about!

If you want an excellent book on c# and the .net platform then buy this book as it's a first class piece of work. My personal number one book on c#. Easy to understand and read. The only downside is the thickness of the book, if it was published in three volumes it would have been more manageable to hold. If you can get the hardback version all the better.

This is a big book and will take a lot of time to read and digest. A number of reviews speak of the sheer size of the 'wooden' edition. I agree, its not easy to carry around (especially with a 17" laptop). It works well on a Kindle and, given the quality of the book, you can justify the purchace of a kindle on this book alone.

If you want almost all information about the .Net platform in one book, this is the book to invest in. It covers all subjects pretty good, and has a nice size of 1561 pages. Minor downside is that if you really need to dig into deep details about WCF for example, it kind of needs a book of its own. On the other hand, with the web search engines we have today, the info gather is this elephant book can get you going on most subjects. It took me several months to read through it all.