5 comments about Beginning C# (Beta 2 Edition).

1. This is a great book. Easy to follow. As with any computer book, boring to read, but not at all hard to follow--with exception of few points here and there. The reward comes when you apply it and when you finish reading it.

   This book is an answer to my prayers for finding something that will teach me dot net and C# in a comprehensive and easy to learn way.

   All learning to program books are kind of boring, inluding this one. Easiest to read a bit every day and take a few months to finish, rather than trying to gobble up the hole piece and getting extremely bored.

   My background is that of a mid-level progammer, working with VB 6.0. I had some knowledge about objects before I picked up the book.

   kamlesh mistry...




2. This book has very good intentions and covers things in a good solid order, BUT, the mistakes are just plain sloppy. Please don't tell me this book was seriously edited, because you can tell immediately that it was not. If I wrote documentation at work as sloppy as this book was written, I'd be in trouble. On the flip side, the excercises were very helpful, and the authors do a decent job simplifying the topics enough for beginners to grasp them. However, true beginners should start with C# for Dummies. I hope the second edition really cleans things up though. Wrox should allow for mail-in rebates when second editions come out so quick. I'm sure many of us would be happy to tear off the back cover of the first editions and send it in for a check in return!



3. This is a great book - it explains the concepts quite well, for a person like me, with a PHP background. However, it's incredibly boring. The first 250 pages of the book is dedicated to many small hello-world-style examples of code, which really doesn't explain why or where one should really use enumerations, structs and stuff - I would have preffered to be walked through larger, real-life applications instead. Don't get me wrong - this book is great for looking up stuff, but as a beginner, it's better to complement it with a more hands-on approach.



4. The 1st edition is now out-of-date. I think it was written for an early or beta version of .NET. But..., if you find this, second hand, at a bargain price it's still a good buy. You can still get the errata and sample code from the APress web-site (not the Wrox site!). The book gives a good introduction to C# but I wouldn't recommend it too highly to someone who had never done any programming before. It's recommended for people who have already learnt one programming language. The book does a good job of teaching OOP programming in C# to people who already have some programming experience (but not with OOP). When working through the sample projects everything went well for me with the sample code until the last 2 case studies. I was able to convert all the projects to VS.NET 2003 and to figure out the occasional line of code I needed to rewrite to get the projects working. Things seem to have got a little rushed at the end with the 2 final case studies. I couldn't get them to work and didn't even understand how the first was supposed to work (from the non-explanation given in the text). The other criticism I have of the book is that there aren't enough exercises at the back of the chapters and that sample answers to exercises aren't given. Note: book authors - this (sufficient exercises with sample answers) is an essential requirement for a serious book aimed at beginners.
   
   Because to these smallish flaws it gets only 3 stars. It could've been a 5 star book with a little more care; so it still comes highly recommended if you can get it for less than $5.
   
   This was a review of the 1st edition of the book.



5. Great learning material. Following the examples and the natural progression of the book is a great method for learning C# with practical examples. Very straight forward approach without being too verbose.

3 comments about Professional Windows GUI Programming Using C#.

1. If you've learned C# and you're ready to jump into Windows Forms, this is a great place start.

   You start off by receiving an introduction to almost all of the Common Windows Controls. An in-depth look at how Databinding works and how you can implement databinding into your own controls. A pretty good introduction to GDI+ and drawing methods, which can be followed up with the book "GDI+ Programming: Creating Custom Controls Using C#" if you want to go into more detail.

   The next chapter on Printing was a highlight for me. With little previous printing experience, it was a very helpful section. A nice relief too, to see that printing really is just drawing to printer instead of the screen. If you have GDI+ down, printing should be no problem.

   Then the book moves on with a nice chapter on Custom Controls. A lot of great sample code in there to help illustrate what they are saying. Design Time support is highlighted upon too, to allow for reusable controls by other programmers.

   Finishing up with two chapters on optimizing and deploying your Windows Applications. Good tips and knowledge that you wouldn't want to take the time to figure out your self.

   Definitely one to own to get started with Windows Forms.




2. This book lacks the depth that one would expect from the "Professional" series. Up to this point, I have found the Professional series of books to be quite a resource, as they usually provide information that you otherwise would not find through a cursory glance at the online documentation that Microsoft provides. I am a professional and I expect a professional level treatment of programming from this series. This book is a disappointment in this respect.

   For example, there is a chapter covering the Windows common controls. The text merely describes the process for dropping each control on a form in the designer and setting a few properties, most of them obvious properties. For the complex controls, for example ListView and TreeView, very little information is provided. TreeView has about 2 pages of text if you drop out the two screen shots and more than 1/4 of that is an extremely simple code example. The ListView control has maybe 2 pages of text and a little less than 1/2 of that is code. By way of contrast, an excellent book called "Professional MFC with Visual C++ 6", although outdated as it does not cover Visual Studio .NET, had nearly 20 pages on the ListView control and 9 pages on the TreeView control, and was an invaluable resource on all aspects of Visual C++, including GUI programming.

   As another example of the many omissions in Pro. Windows GUI Programming, there is no practical discussion about how forms and dialogs should be used. What events should be handled to load data and extract data from the form? When should you call Dispose on a modal dialog? Microsoft documentation says you should always call Dispose when the dialog will no longer be used. This so-called Professional book says nothing.

   There are plenty of other examples of information not provided. About the worst thing I could say about this book is that its worse than the Microsoft documentation. I find myself constantly not finding what I am looking for in the book and resorting to a search of the MSDN documentation. In contrast, when using the Visual C++ 6.0 book that I was so enamoured with, I often found myself doing the opposite: searching in vain in the Microsoft documentation, only to find the topic discussed in sufficient detail in the book.

   ...




3. This is a excellent book for GUI programing with C#

5 comments about Applied .NET Attributes.

1. Excellent way to move the .NET tools you build to their next level of value. I have been developing for over 10 years; I buy an average of 4 books a month. I have never written a review before this.
   These guys took the first serious shot at moving us (the .NET crowd) toward thinking about Aspect Oriented Programming by doing an excellent job revealing the unpublicized tools that currently exist.
   To date I was looking into AOP in C# here among other places (there are not that many available):
   Theme/UML
   http://www.dsg.cs.tcd.ie/index.php?category_id=165
   AspectC#
   http://www.dsg.cs.tcd.ie/index.php?category_id=171

   I won't go into the details of the book, you can find them here:
   http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=227

   If you buy just one book this year, make it this one. It is the shortest one I have bought this year.
   It is also the most informative one...




2. Excellent way to move the .NET tools you build to their next level of value. I have been developing for over 10 years; I buy an average of 4 books a month. I have never written a review before this. This is the first.

   These guys took the first serious shot at moving us (the .NET crowd) toward thinking about Aspect Oriented Programming by doing an excellent job revealing the tools that currently exist in the .NET Framework.

   I have been looking into AOP using C# and there are not that many available resources. A few, but not many. The book doesn't go into a bunch of over kill on selling AOP. It actually points out some possible performance issues with using context-interception. It just gives a real practical overview of AOP.

   The book hits the ground running and covers a ton of valuable information related to .NET Attribute usage. I won't go into the details of the book there is plenty of information available on the APress web site. Go check out the Detailed TOC, Index, and Sample Chapter: Chapter 1: Attribute Fundamentals.

   This book is the shortest one I have bought this year.
   It is also the most informative one... WELL WORTH IT...




3. I had been programming in .NET for a while before I really learned to appreciate the power of attributes. But even then I was still playing around with [Obsolete], [Serializable] and the more common ones. Then I ran across the whole subject of declarative security and realized I had a Lot of learning to do. Fortunately for me, this book eased the process.

   The only thing I didn't like about it is that I wish there was a lot more of it. Most of the discussion of attributes that I've run across are either the 'canned' ones like what I mention above, or overly theoretical. Too often I just couldn't see where they'd be applicable (more because of my thick head than any writer's deficiencies). That's where this book really shines. It starts out with your basic "what's" and "why's" but gets moving pretty quickly. Another thing about this book is that it's a pretty advanced topic. Back in college, we were heavy into OOP, but I don't remember hearing about AOP (Aspect Oriented Programming) and this is the first time I've really run across it. I really wish there would have been some more on the subject, but they did a very good job explaining the subject.

   There are many good examples in here and the text is very well written. APress is pretty great about the quality of their stuff and this is no exception.




4. Nowhere near as good as the Wrox Handbook series (which Apress now owns).

   I'm sure this book is a good introduction to attributes and if you're not that knowledgable with attributes, you will learn. But you could probably learn a lot from some of the (much shorter) online tutorials from Fawcett or dotnet247.

   I found that WAY too much time was wasted on covering topics such as serialization and writing a compiler. Introduce the concepts, sure, but don't waste an entire chapter on either of them. Those are for other books.

   Also, the author was very "wordy" on describing things. I'd rather read the odd sentence twice to fully understand it instead of constantly reading one sentence, understanding it, and having to read 10 more that REALLY don't elaborate... or say much of anything.

   I also found that the order in which the book taught was backwards. If chapter 1 had introduced a simple custom attribute along with a little bit of reflection, the book would have flowed much better.

   Many of the benefits of attributes were never covered... single attributes that replace handres of lines of code... the real power of attributes and inheritance.... not covered.

   This book was nowhere close to my hopes and it didn't teach me a great deal, but then I've made extensive use of attributes in the past. It succeeded in answer only one of my unanswered questions.

   All in all, it could have been 50% shorter and still given about 25% more useful information. If you already know attributes well, don't bother.




5. I am so thrilled with this book. The coverage of AOP is excellent. Everything in this book is excellent (I especially love the IL that is listed and the fact you are not scared to 'go there') - most authors shy away from IL). I have added it to my must read books for .NET Mastery and on my Amazon list with over 11,000 reads as a 'must read'. Richter, Lowy, and now "Bock and Barnaby". This inspired me while reading this on a flight recently from Toronto to create an AOP implementation to use attributes for strongly typed collections in .NET 1.1. Works like a charm. So you might have a HashTable. The attribute is:
   
   [StronglyTypedCollection(ColKeyTypeName="System.String", ColValueTypeName="%RunningAssembly%,CustomerBusinessObject")]
   
   Note the use of a substitution parameter: %RunningAssembly% . I substitute this and other parameters at run-time to do the Type Check. The syntax for the type is:
   
   "Assembly (optional), TypeName".
   
   The Type name may need to be qualified by namespace as well.
   
   I am using this as part of the DotNet2UML utility my company maintains (google on DotNet2UML) and the next major release (3.0). I am also making this assembly available to beta testers as it provides many cool AOP Framework type features. Email me if interested. And thank you Jason and Tom. Excellent work.
   
   [...]

5 comments about Developing Web Applications with ASP.NET and C#.

1. I bought and downloaded this pdf version of the book on my work computer, but I can't download it or copy it and bring it up on my home computer. Since I'm trying to learn this stuff at home and use it at work, this limits it's usefulness to me. Is this the future of what computing has in store for us, especially with Microsoft's next operating system having this kind of encryption built in? You buy software or other media and it only works on that particular machine?

   Well this is the first and last ebook I buy. I use more than 1 computer in my life and to be restricted where I can use the software or media I buy is way too restrictive.




2. The book is well-written and thought out overall; it delivers a great balance between covering key topics, while giving relevant, real-world examples. The first 5 chapters cover the basics of asp.net, very easy to understand even for a novice programmer, while the latter 5 get into more advanced topics such as building an e-commerce site, web services, and debugging and does require a deeper grasp of other programming concepts, such as OOP and database design. It's not an asp.net bible, but it's a great addition to any asp.net libary.



3. This book is fantastic for self-study and the only prerequisite is that you should have some understanding of C#. I bought Essential ASP.NET by Fritz Onion before this one but it was a little hard to follow at first - also, it deals more with ASP.NET architecture and internals and isn't so practical if you have to start building ASP.NET applications right away. I assure you this one can get you started in 2 to 3 days if you know C#. It covers all the major topics, doesnt have any mistakes (at least I couldn't fine any), has superb explanations and straightforward coding examples. It even teaches you ADO.NET if you dont know that already.



4. I think this is a great book for entering ASP.NET programmming if you come from the old asp world.



5. This book is great for beginners, but it lacks depth. It provides a lot of examples for creating pages, but my experience is that background information is important. I would like to have seen more information on Master Page inheritance. This concept is ideal for standardizing the UI and establishing consistency throughout the application. Don't get me wrong, this is a good book, but I expected more detailed examples. Experienced developers may want to pass on this one.

5 comments about Developing .NET Custom Controls and Designers Using C#.

1. Content and topics covered in the book are good, especially
   a lot pages talking on designer. But it lacks small and complete examples like presented in other books that help to understand. Finally it presented an big example that has too many codes to read.



2. I've been developing custom controls in C# for 3 months now after developing custom Java controls for years. I must say initially that this book was not much help. If you need a real beginner book that holds your hand step by step buy Petzold. However, after delving into the intricacies of Windows Forms you'll definitely find this book useful. The OutlookTab example in this book invaluable. It's a real world example and the author tackles some of the more advanced development topics. I agree with other reviewers that this book is not as clear as you would hope. Also you will definitely still need to read the MSDN docs and probably look at the some disassembly to get a good grasp of developing your own custom controls.



3. I'm only four chapters through this book, and already I am having difficulty. I am an intermediate programmer who has been programming my own custom controls for months with limited success, hence my interest in the title.

   One instance of difficulty is that the example given in chapetr 3 doesn't work. When I looked at the author's downloadable sample code and compared it to the code in the book, I found that he implemented 2 other functions not implemented in the book. However, it made no difference at runtime, the code still did not work as intended. Then the author got into UITypeEditors. He introduces terms without fully explaining what they mean (of course, they can easily be looked up on MSDN, but what's the problem with quickly explaining them in a paragraph or two??). He quickly jumps from one topic to another within this section of the chapter and just dumps code on you. So much so, I feel like I just got picked up by a tornado and dropped 15 miles away!

   While I look forward to reading the rest of the book to try and get what I can out of it, I agree with other reviewers that you are still going to need to read as much as you can from the MSDN (what little there is there) as well as other sources that may be available on the web, and of course, you're going to have to tinker around to really learn anything substantial. However, having said that, this is only one of two books devoted to custom control development (the other being .Net Windows Forms Custom Controls by Richard L. Weeks, which is better in my opinion, but still not the greatest.).

   The long and short of it is, anything at all is a help, but you're going to have to read other sources and just plain old play with code on your own. Apparently, there does not exist one comprehensive book that will get you on your way. Yes boys and girls, there will be homework tonight, and a lot of it, so happy reading. And your final project is due YESTERDAY!

   ***

   I finished reading this book. It only took two days! The author stopped trying to write after the second chapter!! This book is horrible. If you want a paperback version of the MSDN, then this book is for you, otherwise, don't waste your time or money on it.




4. This has to be the worst book I have ever bought. Poor explaining & a lot of errors in the code.



5. This book rocks!!! I've just purchased the ebook version, and I must say that after spending several days searching through bookstores and the web, this has got to be the most insightful book on reusable control development on the market (In the .NET Arena!!!).
   
   As this book covers all elements of control development, I can definitely advise any developer looking to deliver professional user controls that this book is a must have.
   
   Well done to the author for bypassing the publishers. It's about time developers had immediate access to downloadable versions of the books after purchase.
   
   As a reader from the UK, I must point out that this title was not available via the Amazon.co.uk web site, but that's another matter

No comments about Practical Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science Using Python.

1 comments about .NET Mobile Web Developer's Guide.

1. Reviewing books is a very subjective process. The review is colored by personal reaction as your level of expertise runs up against who the authors and the editors expected as the prospective audience for the book.

   Given that my level of knowledge differs from another person who may be interested in a book, I will try to provide as much info as I can so that an interested party can make their own judgment about a particular book. To that end, I will assign a pass/fail grade to each chapter. The pass/fail grade will be assigned based on the following context and assumptions:

   * The book title. What specific technology does it focus on?
   * Are the examples and explanations clear and to the point?
   * Evaluation of the topics in the context of the title and intended audience of the book.

   Chapter 1: Introduction to the wireless web and the Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit

   This was a rather long chapter (58 pages). It starts out with a general introduction to the various mobile devices and the their limitations regarding connectivity, screen size, memory and processing power. Along the way some rather interesting information on items such as Connectivity options and a basic introduction on how WML is delivered to Microbrowsers are covered. This was well written and I rather liked the background that was covered.

   The next section of the chapter gets into the actual Mobile controls themselves with sample code snippets. The controls cover the gamut from the general input controls to list and validation controls.

   All code samples are in VB.Net

   Grade: Pass
   
   Chapter 2: Introduction to the Microsoft .Net Framework

   A fundamental assumption that I made when reviewing a book that is focused on Mobile .NET is that the reader already knows what the .NET framework is and also that the MMIT is an extension of ASP.NET. In short, I am assuming that the reader is already familiar with both of these ideas/technologies and does not need it repeated to them.

   Well, this chapter does just that. It covers everything from getting and installing the framework to explaining what a web service is. I personally found this chapter redundant. Getting an introduction to the what the framework is was NOT something I was looking for in this book. In addition, there was no attempt to slant the explanation to anything remotely mobile related.

   Grade: Fail
   
   Chapter 3: Learning ASP.Net Covered the ASP.NET architecture and the web controls.

   Items covered ranged from the usage of a DataGrid(!) to Validator controls. Again, I found this chapter redundant.
   I am NOT looking for an intro to ASP.Net in a book that is supposed to talk about .net mobile capabilities.

   Grade: Fail
   
   Chapter 4: Using Mobile Device Emulators

   A very detailed chapter that talked about the various mobile emulators that are out there, where to get them, installation and configuration instructions etc.
   A very valuable chapter for any mobile developer that is targeting multiple devices.

   Grade: Pass
   
   Chapter 5: Developing mobile applications using the MMIT
   This chapter was a disappointment for me. Given the chapter title, I really was expecting to get into the guts of the mobile controls at this point.

   But only superficial examples are given. A majority of the information in this chapter seems to be a rehash of the MMIT documentation on MSDN. One of the more powerful controls that is present in the MMIT is the objectList. Beyond a written description of what it is, NO further information is provided. Very disappointing!

   Grade: Fail
   
   Chapter 6: Data Access with ADO.NET

   One of the beauties of the MMIT, is that you can use all of the same data access technology that you use with Web forms and windows forms. Given that, I again found this chapter redundant in the context of Mobile applications.

   I do NOT need an explanation of the ADO.NET object model, not to mention info on how to update/delete using ADO.Net. It did not teach me anything new that was relevant to my reason for getting the book in the first place, namely learning about Mobile .net technologies.

   Grade: Fail
   
   Chapter 7: End-to-End Microsoft Mobile Solutions

   This chapter went into great detail about how to install and configure the Microsoft Mobile Information Server and how to configure Exchange 2000 to work with this product.

   At the end of reading this chapter, I was ... confused. I had no idea why this chapter was in a book that was titled .NET Mobile Web Developer's Guide. Yes, the Mobile Information Server is a Microsoft technology that does allow you to deploy a mobile solution that allows you to read your exchange inbox from a phone and various other capabilities. BUT, it has nothing to do with MMIT!

   Grade: Fail
   
   Chapter 8: Creating a Mobile Movie Ticket Purchasing Application

   I liked this chapter!. It gave extensive documentation on System/Process flow, Database schema, components that were built to abstract data access as well as a UI storyboard for the application. Then it got into the code.

   It is a rather straight forward application, but the supporting design documentation made it very useful from a developers perspective especially as there was discussion of the code and design tradeoffs. In addition, it also provided extensive screenshots of how the app would look in a variety of devices.

   Grade: Pass
   
   Conclusion:

   Based on my personal criteria, 3 out of 8 chapters passed. As mentioned above, your needs in what you are looking for in a book might vary, but hopefully I have provided enough info for you to make up your own mind.

No comments about ASP.NET 3.5 Enterprise Application Development with Visual Studio 2008: Problem Design Solution.

1 comments about Building Web Applications with C# and .NET: A Complete Reference.

1. This book does have some very good references of many of the .NET classes, BUT the index is only 3 pages long so good luck finding them! I don't know how a publisher prints a "reference" book without even a passing stab at a index but here it is.
   Also who wants to build a web application without data connectivity? Not me.
   There are a scant few pages on OleDBConnection and NONE on SqlCconnection! I'm not kidding the word 'SqlCconnection' appears exactly ONCE in this book and forgive me for spoiling the surprise but here it is: "SqlConnection represents a connection to a SQL Server database." That's a quote, and the complete discussion.
   
   Other than that this book is ok, but skipping on the index and SqlConnection in a .NET Web application "complete reference"? That's a mighty big oversight if you ask me.

No comments about Expert WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 Programming.