Customer Reviews
Adequate - By: ItsNotMe, 24 Nov 2008 
Fortunately C# & .NET aren't the most taxing topicsin software development, otherwise this book wouldn't be adequate. However although mediocre, verbose, & printedin a too-small font, it's good enough, & quite possibly the best of a so-so pack.
Broad but neither deep nor concise - By: Mr. Geoffrey J. Hellings, 20 Nov 2008 I can recommend this book but only to programmers experiencedin an OO language.
I have only read 500 pages so far but am sufficiently annoyed that I felt the need to write a review. I have covered all the core & advanced C# features & am now headingin to the .NET assemblies section.
I have found the phrasing imprecise & the editing substandard. I am surprised that no errata has appeared on the publisher's "Pro C# 2008" web page despite it being released last year. Code examples are copious but frequently differentiate themselves very little from previous examples & could save hundreds of pages by being cut down.
Despite my criticisms, I feel that I have now gained a working knowledge of C#. I am sure that any experienced OO programmer could do the same but I shudder to think that somebody might rely on this book to introduce them to OO concepts.
To be completely subjective, I really dislike Troelsen's writing style. I had the opportunity to dipin to the text before I bought it & at that time I felt it was writtenin an approachable style but after 500 pages I am grinding my teeth. Sentences that equate to, "X is a feature of C# but is useless until it is made use of," are not uncommon. The phrase "to be sure" now makes me flinch. Some sentences just stagger me with their irrelevance.
It doesnt get much better than this - By: Robin Dewson, 23 Sep 2008 
I have read a couple of the previous versions & for me Andrew is the best technical author bar none. This isnt a light book to carry around but its worth it if you have to. You might think "how can this be a good book as it covers everything" but Andrew covers every subject with enough detail so that by the end of each section you know the concept, understand what is required for that concept, & have sufficient code examples to work with & even take further. Top drawer work
Great Technical Book - By: A. Eastham, 04 Jul 2008 This is a really excellent technical book that you can actually enjoy reading from cover to cover. It assumes a reasonable level of competance, but actually goes through learning C# & .NETin a way that would be an excellent beginners method too (especially if you went through every example, to which source code is available online). The author even manages to getin the odd bit of dry humour too which never goes amissin a thick technical book such as this!
The book regularly points you at a number of web resources which the author has built up over the years which give excellent additional information about topics which are outside the scope of the book. Overall, I'd say this is one of the best technical books I have ever read.
For seasoned programmers only - By: Mr. D. F. Poisson, 09 Jun 2008 An exhaustive reference book on all things C#... But I would disagree with some of the earlier posts that recommend this for novices. If you've been programmingin other languages & you want to transfer your Knowledge to C# 2008 terms, then yes, you don't need to have read another book on C#, this is the definitive guide. There doesn't seem to be anything better out there to take you from Non-C# Professional Programmer to C# Professional Programmer. But if you're starting out from scratchin programming, you won't be programming for long if you count on this to take you from zero knowledge to pro.
From the very first pages, the reader is expected to follow streams of self-referencing jargon which will be quite clear to programmers, but to the novice, here's a little how it feels like:
[H.Mpp] is a derin picker (see chapter 59) without all the rumms & can be divided into Yoos & AD2s (unlike G.O. which objectivies even without greeling the original Z & we all know how annoying that can be!)Here's an example:
?hy/
HYYu (lks) ?
So you see how much easier it is to codein C#?
Joking aside, the point is that if you are already familiar with the jargon & what it actually refers to, this is a goldmine of information, but if you're just starting off, I would go for the Head First C# book. It'll get you up to speedin no time.
