C# 4.0 in a Nutshell: The Definitive Reference Review

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C# 4.0 in a Nutshell: The Definitive Reference ReviewThis book is great. It's no nonsense approach to covering the C# 4.0 language is like a breath of fresh air. It is clean, to the point, and thorough. It makes finding a topic, and learning it, or getting a refresher, a very fast process.
This new version includes new chapters on parallel programming (including PLINQ), and dynamic programming, and new sections on code contracts and COM interoperability.
The authors have a great writing style which makes the book a very enjoyable read. You can read this cover to cover, or use it as a very handy reference. You won't find any case studies, or made up scenarios, to help the authors describe the technology. They stick to writing about the technology, which is nice.
One of my favorite features of the book is the way the authors do their diagramming. They include a lot of diagrams that give a visual representation of the feature they are describing. The diagrams really help with getting a quick understanding of the overall picture of the topic. The authors also demonstrate with code that is always easy to understand and within the scope of the topic at hand. You don't have 2 pages of code with 3 lines highlighted.
Another part of this book I love is the way the authors deliver the code samples using LINQPad. I own the full auto completion version of LINQPad and it rocks. I have been using it since its first release and it has become my favorite tool when working with databases.
My only complaint about the book is the construction. The gluing job they did is horrible. It has big clumps of glue embedded in the pages which cause the binder to really bend. It will probably fall apart within a month of heavy use. I won't ding the book for that. It is a publisher issue, not an author issue.
All in all I highly recommend this book. It belongs on the shelf of any serious developer.
Review Update-
The editor of C# 4.0 in a Nutshell Book read my blog and suggested I contact O'Reilly Media for a new copy since my binder was a mess.
They made good on the request for a new copy of the C# 4.0 in a Nutshell Book and I received it today with the binder in perfect condition. No glue blobs in between any pages. Hats off to O'Reilly Media!!!!!
C# 4.0 in a Nutshell: The Definitive Reference Overview
What people are saying about C# 4.0 in a Nutshell

"C# 4.0 in a Nutshell is one of the few books I keep on my desk as a quick reference. It is a book I recommend." --Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President, .NET Developer Platform, Microsoft Corporation

"A must-read for a concise but thorough examination of the parallel programming features in the .NET Framework 4." --Stephen Toub, Parallel Computing Platform Program Manager, Microsoft

"This wonderful book is a great reference for developers of all levels." -- Chris Burrows, C# Compiler Team, Microsoft

When you have questions about how to use C# 4.0 or the .NET CLR, this highly acclaimed bestseller has precisely the answers you need. Uniquely organized around concepts and use cases, this fourth edition includes in-depth coverage of new C# topics such as parallel programming, code contracts, dynamic programming, security, and COM interoperability. You'll also find updated information on LINQ, including examples that work with both LINQ to SQL and Entity Framework. This book has all the essential details to keep you on track with C# 4.0.

Get up to speed on C# language basics, including syntax, types, and variables
Explore advanced topics such as unsafe code and preprocessor directives
Learn C# 4.0 features such as dynamic binding, type parameter variance, and optional and named parameters
Work with .NET 4's rich set of features for parallel programming, code contracts, and the code security model
Learn .NET topics, including XML, collections, I/O and networking, memory management, reflection, attributes, security, and native interoperability


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MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-528): Microsoft® .NET Framework 2.0 Web-Based Client Development (Pro-Certification) Review

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MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-528): Microsoft® .NET Framework 2.0 Web-Based Client Development (Pro-Certification) ReviewThis is a good book to use for preparing for the specific exam it covers. I read it for that purpose and passed the exam on the first try. The writing is clear and the examples and practices are relevant. The typos, errors and omissions are noticeable but tolerable (somewhat expected for the first printing of this type of book). I enjoyed the writing style and especially the first few chapters that covered conceptual topics. The later chapters are a little dry--I would guess that even the author was bored by the last chapter recounting the endless minutiae of deployment and monitoring.
If you're not planning on taking this exam--get a different book. There are no tips and tricks, no in-depth coverage of how to accomplish real-world tasks, no hand-holding for novices, and a whole lot of extra chapters covering what is likely miscellany to most developers. The book is exactly what it purports to be: a training kit for the purpose of passing this particular exam.MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-528): Microsoft® .NET Framework 2.0 Web-Based Client Development (Pro-Certification) Overview
EXAM PREP GUIDE

Ace your preparation for the skills measured by MCTS Exam 70-528-and on the job. Work at your own pace through a series of lessons and reviews that fully cover each exam objective. Then, reinforce what you've learned by applying your knowledge to real-world case scenarios and labs. This official Microsoft study guide is designed to help you make the most of your study time.

Maximize your performance on the exam by learning to:

Create, trace, configure, and deploy Web applications
Integrate data into your application using Microsoft ADO.NET, XML, and data-bound controls
Implement forms authentication, impersonation, and login controls
Configure server controls and create custom Web controls
Use themes, user profiles, and Web parts for customizable, personalized Web sites
Manage server-side and client-side application state

PRACTICE TESTS

Assess your skills with practice tests on CD. You can work through hundreds of questions using multiple testing modes to meet your specific learning needs. You get detailed explanations for right and wrong answers?including a customized learning path that describes how and where to focus your studies.

Your kit includes:

15% exam discount from Microsoft. Offer expires 12/31/11. Details inside.
Official self-paced study guide.
Practice tests with multiple, customizable testing options and a learning plan based on your results.
400+ practice and review questions.
Case scenarios and lab exercises.
Microsoft Visual Basic and Visual C# code samples on CD.
90-day evaluation version of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition.
Fully searchable eBook of this guide.

A Note Regarding the CD or DVD

The print version of this book ships with a CD or DVD. For those customers purchasing one of the digital formats in which this book is available, we are pleased to offer the CD/DVD content as a free download via O'Reilly Media's Digital Distribution services. To download this content, please visit O'Reilly's web site, search for the title of this book to find its catalog page, and click on the link below the cover image (Examples, Companion Content, or Practice Files). Note that while we provide as much of the media content as we are able via free download, we are sometimes limited by licensing restrictions. Please direct any questions or concerns to booktech@oreilly.com.


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Pro ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008 (Windows.Net) Review

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Pro ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008 (Windows.Net) ReviewPro ASP.net 3.5: This book is a must to have book for anyone who is starting/ switching their careers to developing web applications using asp.net technologies. The authors Matthew MacDonald and Mario Szpuszta, has done a very good job of covering all sections that are useful for beginners as well as middle level developers.
For example, if you are seeing Visual Studio for the first time in your life, they dedicated a whole chapter on how to use visual studio. The reason I brought up this point is they kept the beginners in mind and they didn't leave any assumptions that the reader already know how to use Visual Studio.
At the same time for those middle level developers who wants to dive into newly released hot technologies like Ajax, LINQ and Silverlight you won't be disappointed. They have dedicated individual chapters for each of those topics. As I have been developing asp.net application from last several years, I opened this book to see what I can read about Linq and Silverlight. I enjoyed those chapters as they give you an introduction and a good kick start. I am surprised that the authors also dedicated a whole chapter for website deployment (Chapter 18) where the architectures of IIS 5.0, 6.0 and then 7.0 is explained. That is awesome that they have discussed installation of IIS 7.0 and explained the architecture as well as the new Configuration model of IIS 7.0. Everything is explained with the help of screen shots.
Of course I took for granted for all those core concepts of asp.net like developing Http Handlers, Http Modules, Customer Server controls, Custom Membership and profile providers, Security. They are all covered and are very well explained in individual chapters.
Given the broadness of the subject, the authors done a great job of covering all areas in depth methodically that way you won't be lost.
I enjoyed this book so much that I would definitely recommend this book to any .Net Web Developer and this book is going to take some space on my desk.
Pro ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008 (Windows.Net) Overview
ASP.NET 3.5 isMicrosoft's revolutionary ASP.NET technology. It is the principal standard for creating dynamic web pages on the Windows platform. Pro ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008 raises the bar for high–quality, practical advice on learning and deploying Microsoft's dynamic web solution.

Seasoned .NET professionals Matthew MacDonald and Mario Szpuszta explain how you can get the most from this groundbreaking technology. They cover ASP.NET 3.5 as a whole, illustrating both the brand–new features and the functionality carried over from previous versions of ASP. This book will give you the knowledge you need to code real ASP.NET 3.5 applications in the best possible style.


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Programming Microsoft Visual C# 2005: The Base Class Library (Pro-Developer) Review

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Programming Microsoft Visual C# 2005: The Base Class Library (Pro-Developer) ReviewThere are only a few authors who writes about Microsoft technologies whose book you can buy without reading reviews. Francesco Balena is one of them (yes, Jeffrey Richter is another one). Both of these authors write for a particular segment of developers - those who have some programming experience and have tried some things on their own or have read some beginner's book and is ready for the serious stuff. The style is lucid, but no stone is left unturned on the topic being discussed. Both of them (Balena and Richter) also give practical coding advices which we wont find in the usual programming books. The approach is very pragmatic without losing the spirit of good programming idioms. Well, I am diverging. The point is - you dont need to read any reviews to buy a Balena book - rush to the store and get it. They are all gems.
Well, if you are still reading this and have not ordered it yet, it means you are interested in knowing a bit more about the book. This book is almost a C# port of his book Visual Basic 2005 book. The chapters go like this :
1. .NET Framework basic types - Balena speaks about the System.Object type, String types, Numeric types,DateTime type etc.
2. Object Lifetime - Memory management, Garbage collection etc.
3. Interfaces - Usage of common interfaces in .NET like IComparable, IDisposable etc.
4. Generics - Why we need Generics, how to write generic code and some advanced topics like support for Math operators.
5. Arrays and Collections - The different types of arrays, overview of System.Collections namespace as well as Generic collections.
6. Regular Expressions - This is an excellent tutorial of using regular expressions in .NET
7. Files, Directories and Streams - IO in .NET is a bit confusing, this chapter might help to clear things up.
8. Assemblies and Resources - Everything u need to know about assmeblies.
9. Reflection - Working with assemblies, modules, types - retrieving information about assembly at runtime and how to use that information.
10. Custom Attributes - how to create custom attributes, shows some scenarios for using custom attributes.
11. Threads - Thread fundamentals, synchronization, Thread pool etc. This is a very nice tutorial for using Threads in .NET
12. Object serialization - Serialization techniques - both built-in and custom.
13. PInvoke and COM Interop - Nice introduction, shows how to call plain C DLLs, and COM DLLs from .NET and also calling .NET components from COM. For more details get Adam Nathan's book.
Well, that is it... Not fit as your first C# book, but if you know some C#, this is a very good book for anybody.Programming Microsoft Visual C# 2005: The Base Class Library (Pro-Developer) Overview
Get the guidance you need to master the intricacies of the .NET Framework base class library using Visual C#—and learn best practices for developing robust code efficiently. With hands-on programming instruction, expert insights, and practical examples, professional developers learn how to customize classes and solve sophisticated development problems for any kind of application.

Discover how to:

Use generic types defined in the .NET Framework—or author your own—to solve recurring programming problems
Master regular expressions to perform complex text searches and sophisticated input validation
Use iterators, anonymous methods, and asynchronous delegates
Take code reuse to the next level with reflection
Use custom attribute to implement plug-in architectures and n-tier applications
Serialize complex objects to file or database fields
Address versioning issues with large programs and multiple executables
Apply multithreading techniques to help avoid resource-sharing issues
Work with unmanaged code and COM components by using PInvoke and COM Interop

PLUS—Get code samples on the Web


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Illustrated C# 2005 Review

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Illustrated C# 2005 ReviewI own a lot of .NET books, including about 10 C# texts. What sets Illustrated C# 2005 apart is that it reads as if I were watching a professor draw on the chalkboard in class. That is the best analogy I can think of. It is hard to find a page without some type of flow chart, code snippet or diagram on it. This is a very visual book. It is a fantastic text for anyone new to the C# language. If you like to learn by seeing then Illustrated C# 2005 is probably the book for you.
This book is geared toward C# beginners or those who prefer a more "visual" approach to learning. However, with that said, this book is a handy reference in any C# library because of the thoroughness in which it covers its topics. For example the subject of Classes spans four chapters. It does a better job of explaining objects than my first semester C# college textbook. And there is no filler on these pages. The diagrams are very compact. I love it when publishers print an honest page worth. Nice!
A few advanced topics such as threading are not covered. That is probably a good thing as cramming every bit of C# knowledge into this book would be overloading the user. Not pun intended :)
Several parts of this book really stand out. It has a great explanation of a computer system's "stack" and "heap". A lot of us know what these are or have read something about them. For me, the diagrams really helped to clarify how a program uses the stack and heap while running. And that section has a nice segue into value types and reference types.
Another chapter I like is the one on Generics. Generics are a way to apply a class' actions to any "type". They allow you to add an additional layer of abstraction so that you can more easily reuse the code you have written. The Generics chapters is very well written with several nice visual examples. The chapter on Arrays is yet another great example. Most of us who have learned (or tried to learn) arrays know that it is easier to grasp a multidimensional concept when you can see it! There are lots of illustrations in the Arrays chapter.
The last chapter "Other Topics" contains discussion of the StringBuilder class, parsing strings to data values, nullable types, method Main, code domination and nested types. I have noted each chapters approximate page count in parenthesis.
CHAPTERS
C# and the .NET Framework (13)
Overview of C# Programming (14)
Types, Storage and Variables (13)
Classes: The Basics (15)
Methods (32)
More About Classes (40)
Classes and Inheritance (30)
Expressions and Operators (35)
Statements (30)
Namespaces and Assemblies (25)
Exceptions (15)
Structs (8)
Enumerations (10)
Arrays (25)
Delegates (15)
Events (15)
Interfaces (22)
Conversions (30)
Generics (25)
Enumerations and Iterators (22)
Attributes (18)
Processor Directives (10)
Other Topics (25)Illustrated C# 2005 OverviewC# is the most influential language on the .NET platform. As Microsoft's preferred language it has established a solid user base over recent versions and is drawing in developers from older technologies at an ever increasing rate. With the recent release of .NET 2.0 this migration has never been faster.This book caters to that migrating audience. Developers already familiar with the basic concepts of a programming language (any programming language) often find the traditional compendium-based ‘beginner's guides' heavy and difficult to read as they spend a lot of time explaining concepts the reader already understands from their previous technology.Illustrated C# is an antidote to this. It packs the essentials of the C# language into just 350 pages, using an array of visual styles to provide a clear, fast, reference to the core of the technology. It's a book migrating developers can read in a day and grasp enough of the language to find their feet and move confidently onto the .NET platform.

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Programming Microsoft® Visual Basic® 2005: The Language (Pro Developer) Review

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Programming Microsoft® Visual Basic® 2005: The Language (Pro Developer) ReviewThere haven't been many good books that take Visual Basic .NET seriously as a full-featured Object Oriented Programming language for the .NET platform. Every other book on VB .NET is nothing but screenshot after screenshot of "drag-and-drop" development using Visual Studio.
Programming with the .NET framework encompasses a huge spectrum of things to learn. VB .NET the language, Visual Studio IDE, ASP .NET , ADO .NET, Windows Forms, Windows Services, Serviced Components and Interop are some of those things. After trying many VB books out there, I can confidently say that covering the entire breadth of topics makes a book shallow.
This book picks a select few of the above-mentioned topics and drills very deep into them. It focuses on the language constructs and shows us better programming techniques. Going through a few chapters, I've already learned many ways to write better code.
I'm glad this book doesn't spend a few hundred pages on ADO.NET and ASP.NET (there are some very good books that cover those topics... see below). Doing so would have taken space away from the valuable (and rare) content on the language itself.
This book won't show you how to create a drag-and-drop Windows/Web app. What it will do is make you a much better programmer.
Here's a list of some of the best books for VB Developers currently for sale:
- For Database Programming: Pro ADO.NET 2.0 (Sahil Malik; Apress)
- For ASP.NET Web Development: Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Core Reference (Dino Esposito; MS Press)
- Best-practices for .NET: Practical Guidelines and Best Practices for Microsoft Visual Basic and Microsoft Visual C# Developers (Francesco Balena, Giuseppe Dimauro; MS Press)
- Good overall crash-course to get things started: Programming Visual Basic 2005 (Jesse Liberty; O'Reilly)
And of course, to master the most fundamental thing of all, the language itself, I recommend this book.Programming Microsoft® Visual Basic® 2005: The Language (Pro Developer) Overview
Get the essential, straightforward information you need to master the core capabilities of Visual Basic 2005. Focusing on the language and the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 base class library, a well-known authority on Visual Basic provides both new and experienced developers the pragmatic guidance and examples they need to build innovative solutions.

Discover how to:

Compress files, manipulate ACLs, use semaphores, and exploit other new capabilities in the .NET Framework 2.0
Implement generics to define a type-safe data structure
Use inheritance, polymorphism, interfaces, delegates, and attributes to write flexible applications
Use the My namespace to perform common tasks more easily
Work with the new editing and debugging features of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
Master regular expressions and perform complex text searches and input validation
Take advantage of streams, serialization, and threading techniques
Implement advanced programming techniques based on custom attributes, reflection, and on-the-fly compilation
Interact with legacy code by using PInvoke and COM Interop
Understand key differences from Visual Basic 6.0Get code samples on the Web


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