Visual C# 2005: A Developer's Notebook

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 239 pages
• Published by: O'Reilly Media, Inc. April 25, 2005
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 059600799X
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0596007997
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 0.8 inches
• Weighs: 12.8 ounces

Product Description
In the three years since Microsoft made C# available, there have been lots of tweaks to the language. That's because C# is not only essential for making .NET work, it's a big way for Microsoft to attract millions of Java, C and C++ developers to the platform. And C# has definitely made some inroads. Because of its popularity among developers, the language received standardization from ECMA International, making it possible to port C# applications to other platforms. To bolster its appeal, C# 2.0 has undergone some key changes as part of Visual Studio 2005 that will make development with .NET quicker and easier. That's precisely what Visual C# 2005: A Developer's Notebook allows you to do. There are some great new features in C# and this unique "all lab, no lecture" guide covers them all with 50 hands-on projects. Each project explores a new feature, with emphasis on changes that increase productivity, simplify programming tasks, and add functionality to applications. C#'s component-based design combines the productivity of Microsoft's popular Visual Basic with the raw power of C++ for web-based applications. Many reviewers note a similarity between C# and Java--in fact, a new feature that took the Java development team five years to incorporate into Java is now available in C# 2.0. Called "generics", this feature enables developers to reuse and customize their existing code, so they can dramatically cut down the time it takes to develop new applications. Visual C# 2005: A Developer's Notebook is full of no-nonsense code without the usual page-filling commentary. You'll find suggestions for further experimentation, links to on-line documentation, plus practical notes and warnings. The book also tells developers how to acquire, install and configure Visual Studio 2005. Are you a coder to the core? Learn what C# 2.0 can do for you now.

About The Author
Jesse Liberty is the best selling author of Programming ASP.NET, Programming C#, and a dozen other books on web and object oriented programming. He is president of Liberty Associates, Inc., where he provides contract programming, consulting and on-site training in ASP.NET, C#, C++ and related topics. Jesse has been a Distinguished software Engineer at AT&T and Vice President for technology development at CitiBank.

Reader Reviews
So, You are a seasoned C# 1.x developer very much looking forward to learn the lean mean C# 2.0, great. But as much as you want to learn the language enhancements, you despise the fact that any book you pick seems to start teaching you the old things over and over again; all the features you already knew (or should know); the for loop, the if statement and therefore you'd have to skip several hundred pages to get to learn a new feature...that is painful. Like you, I was looking for a book which will teach me delta, i.e. the differences and enhancements to the new language and not the features which I already know as a C# developer for several years. Written with this upgrade-only concept in mind, seasoned author Jesse Liberty's "Visual C# 2005" came to the rescue. As series creator Bret McLaughlin says "People don't have time (or the income) to read through 600 page books, often learning 200 things of which only about 4 apply to their current job." I found this to be a very true statement. From very begining, this book is targeted towards explaining generics, iterators, anonymous methods, partial types, static classes,, nullable types, limiting access to properties, delegate covariance, contra-variance, enumerators etc; things you'd want to learn as these are new to C# 2.0. Next chapter talks about IDE enhancements (not necessarily a language feature but it helps), visualizers, refactoring and debugging tools provided with Visual studio.NET 2005. It gets better from here; Web apps, data driven forms, asynchronous tasks, one click deployment...you name it. In a little over 200 pages, it is a concise upgrade guide to C# 2.0 and Visual Studio.NET 2005 enhancements to support this update. Developer's notebook also talks about security controls, personalization, authentication, master pages, themes and other ASP.NET enhancements you'd find ubiquitous in all ASP.NET 2.0 books, without the fluff. I made myself sound almost like the marketing person for O'Reilly but the truth is, I found this book really exciting. As Bret further said "the often-frantic scribbling and notes that a true-blue alpha geek mentally makes when working with a new language, API or project. It's the no-nonsense code that solves problems....". See it for yourself; download the source from http://www.libertyassociates.com/pages/Books.htm and check out the code samples and labs. I've also just attended Juval Lowy's workshop on Visual C# 2.0 in DevConnections 2005 conference held in Las Vegas. Along with conference notes handout, I used Developer's Notebook as a follow up reference. Example labs like CreateATypeSafeList, GenericEnumeration, ImplementingGenericInterfaces were simillar to those among the demos performed. Also, the author, Jesse Liberty is a Microsoft .NET MVP and author of Programming C#, Programming VB 2005, Programming ASP.NET, Programming .Net Windows Applications and various other books which explains why the book is so cohesive and contemporary. Like any other book, it has some short comings too. For instance the level of detail at certain topics but the link section covers references if you are interested in learning more about a specific subject. I think this comes hand to hand with being to-the-point and concise. If you are not an existing C# developer or want to learn old language features over again, this book is NOT for you. However, if you want to adapt to the new awesome features of C# 2.0 without further ado, there is only one thing to do, add to cart.