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Book ReviewsMurach's C# (.Net Developer) |
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Book: Murach's C# (.Net Developer)
Written by: Joel Murach Doug Lowe |
Publisher: Mike Murach & Associates
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5
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Excellent for teachers and students
Rating:
5 / 5
This is an excellent book for the beginning C# programmer. The book uses a "paired-page" format where the page on the left gives descriptions of a concept and the page on the right provides examples, syntax, and additional information. Although this does lead to some repetition, overall it provides clearer explanations of concepts that are laid out in front of you all at once. It also makes it easier to go back, find, and review information read previously.
The book starts with a tour of C# which leans heavily on Visual Studio. The first three chapters cover using VS.NET and very little C# code is presented. In fact, explanations of how to work in Visual Studio are provided throughout the book. The next two sections, covering 12 chapters, cover the details of programming in C# and writing object oriented code. The coverage of OO is excellent and it will remove much of the mystery associated with OO programming. Database programming using ADO.NET is covered at a good level of detail in five chapters. The final section covers reading and writing files including using the .NET classes to read and write XML files.
In many ways this book provides a level of detail not found in other books with plenty of code samples to help clarify the material. The only thing not covered is ASP and web forms. I can highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning C# or to anyone planning to teach a C# programming course. The book is well designed as a textbook for a programming class. It includes objectives, a summary, a list of important terms, and programming exercises at the end of each chapter. A student workbook and an instructor CD are available.
Good intro to C#
Rating:
4 / 5
One of the few really good introductions to C# syntax. The book is an excellent foundation. The examples are straight forward and I had no problems running them. The paired page format works really well especially when reviewing.
An excellent beginner's book to learn C#
Rating:
5 / 5
I make no secret of being a fan of Murach books. This is the 4th Murach book I have read and the best so far. Murach books have a distinctive feel about them because of the way they are layed out. Every left hand page is a narrative and every right hand page contains diagrams and bullet points relating to the
narrative. This is a format that works for me, especially in the more involved chapters where the narrative can be read and then the important points revisited on the facing page. These bullet points are also useful for using the book for reference in the weeks and months after initially reading it.
The book follows a fairly conventional layout by splitting itself into sections and each section containing a number of associated chapters. Each chapter starts with a brief introduction and then list of topics covered and the page number the topic starts on. At the end of the chapter there is a short perspective paragraph and bullet points summary of what was covered in the chapter, a list of terms introduced in the chapter and some exercises to perform.
The book uses the Microsoft C# IDE v7.1 as the development environment (but nearly all examples will work with v7.0) and MSDE 2000 as the database. The book contains a brief overview on how to install Visual Studio, MSDE, download the source files and attach the database used by the source files to MSDE. There are 7 chapters available for free viewing.
Pros: The space in margins for making notes, the print is clear and there are plenty of diagrams and figures to supplement the text, the format of the book with regard to the left right page combinations, the information in the book is accurate with the few errors being highlighted on the publisher's web site, as applications are developed throughout the book the additional code is clearly highlighted making it easy to pick up on the additions, concepts are introduced in a logical and simplified manner being added to as the book progresses.
Cons: All examples are done using only the Visual Studio (C#) .NET IDE
Conclusion
This book is definitely aimed at the complete newcomer to C#. No previous knowledge of the C#, te Visual Studio IDE nor databases is required. The book will give you a good grounding in the basics of C# but will leave you wanting more, not through any fault of the book but simply because the basic concepts of C# are covered in such detail that there simply isn't enough room in a book of this size to cover more advanced topics. I am certainly hoping for a murach's advanced C# book.
If I had to sum up this book the term I would use is Clear and Concise. The authors very rarely labour any points and move on at a brisk but understandable pace. The accolade I can award to the authors is that after 20 years of trying and failing to find any enjoyment in programming in C this book has finally
won me over and I have already had to catch myself typing C# syntax into my VB.NET projects.A postive addition to my bookcase.
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