5.0 out of 5 stars
The best C# book for visual Studio, April 22 2004
This review is from: Microsoft Visual C# .NET Step by Step--Version 2003 (Paperback)
Note to Amazon staff:
Please take down the review by:
Reviewer: alleyrat001 from Watervliet, NY United States
March 6, 2004
"alleyrat" is obviously talking about a different book for C++ not c#. You must clear up with him which text he is referring to but it is obvious that none of the page references even remotely match.
This erroneous low score is dragging down the overall review rating.
I liked the book so much that I took it upon myself to help right this wrong.
PERFECT FOR BEGINNERS!
I bought about a dozen C# books from a store that does close-outs. For a few dollars I stocked a full C# reference library with all the major titles. I may not be an expert but if there is a C# text I have read at least parts of it.
Even though it is not a reference text and they do not go into some fancier stuff in too much detail, the way the authors explain and properly use the power of Visual Studio is so good that I wind up using this book more than any other.
I may dig more for speciific examples in other ref. books or on the net(who doesn't) but if I want to get the solid explanation I start here.
You cannot write productively .net code without VS!
when you see a book that says in the the Intro that you can whip out your ole' Notepad and go just keep going... Those are the geeks that will keep you going in circles with cryptic explanations of a term that include three or more new never previously defined terms.
Ole' Notepad is like a flight instructor coming to class and saying: "You can fly from Houston to Seattle and you can also walk so class, put on your walking shoes and bon voyage!" "But sir, what about flying?" "Well we'll get into that when you walk back from Seattle."
So if you do not want to walk( or crawl) with .net you have to start with the Visual Studio IDE right off the bat and this book does just that best.
Even though I had a whole shelf of other books already I had to pay full price for this one and it was worth every penny.
Cudos!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great for learning to code C# w/ Visual Studio 2003 IDE, Feb 17 2004
This review is from: Microsoft Visual C# .NET Step by Step--Version 2003 (Paperback)
If you're looking for a book to teach you how to program C# using Visual Studio, this is the book for you. The authors put as much focus on how to use the development environment as they put into the language. Previous exposure to programming and object-oriented concepts are helpful, but not required. I strongly recommend the book to those who are new to C# and/or Microsoft's Visual Studio environment. *Note that this is for version 2003, not the 2002 edition.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1.0 out of 5 stars
I hope these are not your first "step by step"s., Jan 19 2004
This review is from: Microsoft Visual C# .NET Step by Step--Version 2003 (Paperback)
Not for beginners. A fast stroll down the C# and .NET reference. Open-existing-program-and-change-two-lines-of-code kind of exercise pattern. Hard to read text.
In detail:
First of all this book's title implies to me it is written for almost beginners. Well how lucky I am I have 15 years+ programming and IT concepts backing to be able to carry on through the pages. Do not buy this book unless you already know well programming/algorithmic concepts and at least one other language and it better be of the sort of C, Java or JavaScript.
This book will teach you one thing very well - opening existing pre-written programs with Visual Studio 2003 and changing a couple of lines in them. It has this exercise repeated about 40 times. What this book will not teach you is writing C# programs from scratch - what do you write first and why, how you enrich it and why; what real world problems you solve with what type of programs structures, what more do you need as source code and definition files in more complex scenarios and further. You better look for another book if you need that. Also, since 100% of the examples are ones that are pre-written (in the book's CD), have in mind, you will not be able to open them unless you have Visual Studio .NET 2003. I was too naive to assume most of the conceptual ideas I should be able to try on my 2002. No, I had to upgrade to 2003. Otherwise I would not have been able to see any of the code the book tries to take you through.
If you at all find it possible to follow the book's text you will be distracted by erroneous and unclear text and often pointless non-technical paragraphs ranging from wired technical religiousness (isn't it great Gates put the System.Object in the center of the universe?) to excitement of the fact that someone has thought of things like sorted arrays let's say.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No