5 comments about Murach's ADO.NET 2.0 Database Programming with VB 2005.

1. I am a C# developer but when I started browsing this book I couldn't help it but to continue reading it. It is not only about the VB language itself, but instead, how to use it so solve software problems. It teaches how to better write software, best practices and approaches.
   This book doesn't cover all the theory in the world about a topic. Also, not all topics. But it tells you how to use them and what to watch for.
   I am glad to have read it.



2. ADO.NET is a huge and sometimes daunting topic to attempt to cover, but in traditional Murach fashion, this book has the capacity to make its reader an expert if read cover to cover. All of the important topics are coverered, including use of the base objects, data binding, typed vs. untyped data sets, and most importantly (in my opinion): use of object data sources.
   
   The best part of Murach books (including this one), aside from the paired page layout, is that they make no assumption about the reader's skill level, and cover enough background on each topic to ensure that you will come away with a thorough understanding of not just what and how, but also why.
   
   Both beginner and expert programmers alike will find this book extremely useful, and it's a great addition to the Murach family of programming reference and tutorial books.



3. As with the other Murach Press books I have reviewed, this book is extremely readable. It shows step-by-step how to develop database applications with VB. NET 2005 and ADO.NET. This book is best suited to someone new to database development with Visual Studio 2005 but that has a passing familiarity with VB syntax. If you are unfamiliar with flow control statements and VB syntax, you might want to look at Murach's "Visual Basic 2005" book first. I highly recommend this book for entry to mid level developers.



4. I needed to learn ADO.NET for my job and this book was the best on the topic I read the entire book in about 3 weeks. Everything is explained wonderfully. I love how the examples are laid out on the right with explanations on the left. I also really found the program files extremely helpful. I opened each chapters program and followed right along with the book. All the examples are already created so that you can see how they work and even modify them.
   
   I liked this book so much that I also bought the ASP.NET, SQL, and Visual Basic 2005...all topics I need to brush up on. As far as I can tell these other books follow the same great format.
   
   From someone who thousands of dollars worth of technical and programming books...these are great even for beginners. However if you are not familiar with vb2005 get murach's visual basic 2005 to read first.



5. I am an ancient programmer switching from C to .NET. I have read a lotta books in my time and this is the best presentation and layout of a book I have ever seen. Its easy to read. Content is great. I wish I had found it first in my conversion to .NET. I am so impressed that I am checking out the other Murach titles for something to buy.

5 comments about The Essential Guide to CSS and HTML Web Design (Essential Guide).

1. This book is a good guide. It is comprehensive while not being overly technical. I got the book to use as a desk reference. The book starts out with the basics and does a good job building on that knowledge and bringing things together in later chapters.



2. The short review: I downloaded this off a torrent; I was so impressed with it, that I'm buying it hard copy. It's definately one of those books that works well for a quick reference.
   
   The long review: This book probably isn't for absolute gurus, simply because there's too much explanation. I'd probably recommend "The Ultimate CSS Reference" if you've already got a firm foundation and just need a quick reference that you can flip through faster than you can load a pdf from your flash drive.
   
   In fairness, though, this book covers more than CSS; it takes the absolute beginner from the basics to a point where they presumably can google for what they need. I picked this up to get up to date on doing web design, after taking over a decade long haitus from it. I was sold by page 6, where the author explained why he wasn't going to go into using WYSIWYG tools. I was further sold by the _lack_ of an IE centric approach, which I've seen other books use. (One of which went so far as to say that Firefox and Opera weren't worth wasting time designing for, because they comprise such a small percentage of user's browsers.) Craig takes the opposite approach and stresses compatibility heavily.
   
   If you're an absolute beginner, I'm not sure this book will be a good fit for you: it tends to present tags only once, and then flesh out actual usage, without covering every possible attribute of them.
   
   However, if you're somewhat familiar with doing web sites, and especially if you did it in the bad old days, this book is an absolute godsend. The writing style is pleasing, and the book is organized such that it's easy to read it cover to cover and not get bored. The examples tend to be well illustrated, and the graphics save having to actually load the code to see the end result.
   
   Frankly, I was impressed enough with this book to make it the first technical book I've actually _bought_ in years. While it's readable in digital form (which tends to be my preferred method), it almost demands being had in hardcopy. Or, to put it another way, it allowed me to close the 20+ tabs I had open to [...]CSS pages, as well as the multiple Google searches. :-)
   
   The only people who might not benefit from this book are the true experts; if you're so familiar with CSS that you can calculate margin offsets in under 2 seconds, for a four column page with 20+ divs, then it's likely you need something like The Ultimate CSS Reference. Even so, the real world site examples at the end might still give you some food for thought.
   
   I can't think of any gripe about this book, so, I'll just nitpick: the sheep images used for the img tag demonstrations were too Euro-centric. I'd of much rather preferred llamas.



3. A bit complicated for a newbe to web design but I am getting there. Its well laid out and seems up todate.



4. Excellent book, after reading and experimenting with css I have been able to convert a site to use css. Did not know anything about css until this book. Gives great insite to web design using css. Worth every penny.



5. Great book suported by some On-line examples, specially good for begginers.
   Little more examples or exercises will give this book the 5th star but as it is now it is also great.
   My recomendation..
   
   BR

5 comments about Refactoring to Patterns (Addison-Wesley Signature Series).

1. Well done book, and a valuable next-step in learning about design patterns. The original GOF presents them in isolated and rather sterile format and manner, this book adds a much richer context and analysis in actually using them in application refactorings.



2. this is definitely the best book about design pattern I have ever read.
   
   but this book is not telling you what a pattern is and how to use this pattern; instead, it shows some inappropriate designed structure and explains what might be the reason of the inappropriate design, then suggests one pattern to help you out. it's an excellent idea to describe a pattern and the samples are interesting.
   
   moreover, the book is paperback, thin, small, easy to carry, what else can u ask for :D



3. A master-piece and a must-read art-work. When I was studying on Martin Fowler's Refactoring to make my code more comprehensive and improve its clarification, I see, Martin Fowler's techiques are generalized techniques, I found Joshua Kerievsky's techiques in Refactoring to Patterns are more specific techiques concern of purely Design Patterns. While Design Patterns itself high-level abstracted, it is easy to find concrete examples in Recfactoring to Patterns and that makes programmer easy to understand Design Patterns. Special thanks to Joshua Kerievsky and to his study group for a this kind of work.



4. Clean up (refactoring) is fun. Clean up to the design level (patterns) is stunning. A very pragmatic introduction, down to the code and incredibly helpful. Even strong procrastinators develop an appetite for this often little loved part of our work.
   
   Now what are the prerequisites: You should have read and maybe even handy the landmark book "Refactoring" by Martin Fowler and colleagues. You need a working knowledge of design patterns. You have to actually like real code. Everything else is contained in this beautiful book.
   
   The writing style is lucid and the topic is explained in a refactoring fashion: Readers are guided through the subject with real code (somewhat simplified) in small steps at a slow speed step by step. It is amazing how much ground you cover this way and how fast.
   
   I do highly recommend this book for every software developer.



5. There are a lot of nuggets of wisdom in the book, especially in the pragmatic approach the author takes to refactoring and patterns. He admits that patterns can make code worse, or better, depending on the need and skill of the author. He also provides a number of clear examples. However, the style of the book is like the dull works I had to read in graduate school, unnecessarily littered with citations. He cites Fowler to such an obscene degree that it looks more like academic backslapping. Citations are fine when doing a review of literature or examining research, but when they are used for mere quotations, the style is intrusive. As a final complaint, I found that I could often read a whole page and reduce it to one or two sentences. Curiously, he cites an example of Benjamin Franklin trimming a long phrase down to a single person's name. I wish he would have refactored the book in the same way. Almost all programming practices books suffer in the same way: dull, ungodly verbose, academic, and making unnecessary deviations from the point at hand. My suggestion is to get good at skimming, and you will find this book to be worthwhile.

5 comments about Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C# (Robert C. Martin Series).

1. I have purchased and read alot of books on software design and development over the years and I cannot think of a single one of them that I would rate higher than this one.



2. Very readable, entertaining, useful. One of the few books that has been easy to follow and enjoyable to read. Very good general coverage.



3. Agile practices and design patterns written in a clear, concise way. Granted there are a handful of mistakes throughout the book, and the occasional awkward reference to a pattern that won't be covered for another 5 chapters, but they're easy to spot.
   
   The information is presented just right - a little background info, succinct descriptions, and simplified code examples. Outstanding.



4. I have read Bob's books/articles over the last few years. He has a way of explaining a solution that I have never experienced in any other books. This book is not an exception to that. I enjoyed reading everypart of this book. Must read for a C# developers.



5. Other reviewers are predictable in when they say 'this is not C# or agile' what they are really saying is 'I do not want to learn OO design'.
   
   Agile teams must have OO design mastery or they tend to iterate to release 1 with legacy code. After that it is a disaster to change or make long-lived.
   
   If you actually believe that agile lets you neglect OO design expertise that myth is put to bed here.
   
   Are you a .NET C# developer who (forget agile) doesn'r really understand 'favor composition over specialization/inheritance'? Then read this.
   
   
   You can work in software with a lot of gaps, but the content here defines what is mandatory for even moderate levels of team based success, and this is not my opinion this is proven fact over 10 years of our industry evolving.
   
   Do you agree in the following as a common value of `good' for software?
   
   FROM: http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-1050347.html
   
   Good design
   
   Well-designed applications offer software components that are more robust, more maintainable, and more reusable. Such applications should be able to adapt changing business needs without affecting design. For example, a banking application should be able to support new types of accounts without a change in the existing design.
   
   Three key points of good design are:
   
   Maintainability, which is the ease with which a software system or component can be modified to adapt to changing environments, improve performance, correct faults, or other attributes. Well-designed applications require fewer resources for maintenance and changes.
   
   Reusability, which is the degree to which a software module or components can be used in more than one computing program or software system. Reusability of software components helps ensure faster development of software applications.
   
   Robustness, which is the stability of software applications in extreme situations (e.g., maximum load conditions, erroneous user inputs). Robust applications have less downtime and can reduce maintenance costs.
   
   Bad design
   Nobody plans to create ill-designed applications. It often happens because of a lack of experience or because the app was designed quickly to meet an extremely tight deadline. Poorly designed applications usually have these problems in common:
   
   They're rigid. A design is rigid if it cannot be easily changed. For example, a single change to heavily interdependent, rigid software could begin a cascade of changes in dependent packages. When such a program grows in size, the designers or maintainers cannot predict the extent of that cascade of change, and the impact of the change cannot be estimated. This makes the cost of the change impossible to estimate.
   They're fragile. Poorly created programs have a tendency to break in many places when a single change is made. Simple changes to one part of the application can lead to failures in other parts that appear to be completely unrelated. Fixing those problems leads to even more issues, and the maintenance process begins to resemble a dog chasing its tail. Such fragility greatly decreases the credibility of the design and maintenance organization, which leaves users and managers unable to predict the future quality of the product.
   
   
   They're not reusable. A design is difficult to reuse when its desirable parts are highly dependent upon other details, which aren't desired. If the design is highly interdependent, other designers will also be daunted by the amount of work necessary to separate the desirable portion of the design from the parts that aren't reusable. In most such cases, the cost of the separation is deemed to be higher than the cost of redevelopment of the design.
   
   Still with me? Ok..
   
   
   .NET developers historically have lacked (as compared to other OFA (one framework only) developers) at the very, very least) acceptable OO Design skills. I mean even remotely `predictably' acceptable. Sure I worked with many teams who were exceptions but they were all from other (Java/Smalltalk) environments. Even C++ developers can slant to a master of C, deep internals, and Fragile Base Class disaster (grin). So Microsoft would have been nuts as they have always know this to put multiple-inheritance into C#. I digress... This is relevant to the book I swear....
   
   Uncle Bob Martin created a masterpiece here that is still just as (more?) relevant. It is utterly transformative for anyone who wants to be even remotely productive on a team of best-practice types.
   
   FYI this is the book used when I teach 'Core Object Oriented Design for the C# Developer' around the country.
   
   NOTE: Do not let the word 'Agile' fool you. This is a book about best practices in software design and development. Agile just assumes you already know this material, yet most I work with do not.
   
   He provides definitive coverage of the most critical reasons for failure if you skip then. For example, inheritance in OO is wrong for most cases used today in .NET.
   
   Liskov substitution principle
   Read this (covered in detail in this book):
   
   
   Kind Regards,
   Damon Wilder Carr
   http://blog.domaindotnet.com

5 comments about New Perspectives on HTML, XHTML, and Dynamic HTML, Comprehensive, Third Edition.

1. When I through the first few chapters, I liked the book already. First it emphasize that the book only covers coding on Notepad or other text editors. I think that is the best way to learn the language. It doesn't need any HTML editors to do the job. It describes the history of internet and its technologies in some of the chapters. It covers the javascript concepts clearly and shows how things are done, step by step. At the end of each chapter, there are some assignments to enhance understanding. There are hints on how these assignments should be done, step by step also. Sometimes even with the hints, they are not easy to perform, especially for DHTML/Javascript, in many cases, I have to go back to the chapter and re-examine the reasons for writing certain functions, when to call the functions and so forth. This book is suitable for beginners with no HTML knowledge and don't want to code with HTML editors. Thankfully, there are some appendices to the tags used for XHTML, and examined the browser compatibilities also. I print out these appendices to allow me to summarise the book and to carry along. As with most books, this book also contain some errors especially with the answers provided, but it is of little problem if you went through the book thoroughly, you can spot them quite easily. There is another book, "New perspectives on Javascript" by the same author which covers mostly Javascript is not so good value, as a lot of Javascript stuff in that book is already covered here. For more seasoned HTML coders, this book is not so suitable, but if you want to learn new ways of coding to comply with new XHTML standards, you should give this book a look.



2. This book is confusing and the explanations just go on and on. You can follow this book for pages and not be sure how you ended up with what you did. There are other, easier to read books on XHTML and HTML avaialable.



3. I needed this book for a class, otherwise I wouldn't even have touched a web design book. (You could learn more from Google, for free.)
   
   However, I did like the level of depth this book went into. It goes beyond the call of duty by even going through javascript- great touch!
   
   The only thing I can brag about is that this book is popular- so the examples and case problems are all online. This makes it easy to get "help" if you didn't have time to do your work.
   
   Without the class, I would still never buy this book. It's too wordy at times, and beats you over the head with what you already know.
   
   I'd say buy it if you need it for a class, otherwise you can skip it.



4. If you have to buy this book for a class, then buy it. If not, stick with Google. I found more useful and relevant information by using Google and looking through the search results than this book provided.



5. I bought this as the required text for a college class. It is a tutorial supported with online material. Expensive but thorough. Not indexed well enough to be a reference but an effective teaching text if you start at the beginning and invest the hours to get to the end.

2 comments about A to Z GIS: An Illustrated Dictionary of Geographic Information Systems.

1. Books about GIS are usually quite technical, surveying the applications and computer potentials of geographic information systems, so it's refreshing to note that A TO Z GIS: AN ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY OF GEOGEPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS is something different: a simple set of geography and cartography definitions designed to defines values, coordinates, reference systems, representations, and GIS data processing methods and routines. Students of GIS will find this essential to understanding the terminology of both computer and geography worlds.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



2. Have you rummaged through a GIS textbook for half an hour looking for a simple definition, never to find it? Have you wondered why a $100 "introductory" textbook has loads of extraneous information but not a simple glossary, or how it can be written so obtusely and still get past an editing staff? Well, this is the Allen Iverson of GIS books, "The Answer." It gives you GIS concepts clearly and succinctly, with great explanatory illustrations for the "visual learners" out there, which are many in geography I would think. This has been a "go to" book for me in GIS but also in Remote Sensing; there's no question whether to get it, only how much the bookstore will pay you to buy back that unused textbook that you blew $100 on.

4 comments about HTML: Your visual blueprint for designing effective Web pages with HTML, CSS, and XHTML.

1. I bought this book because I wanted to learn CSS and, apart from this being the only book in my local store that covered CSS, I thought learning HTML and XHTML would be a bonus. The fact that the book covers the whole lot is a very good idea, the execution, however, leaves much to be desired.
   
   I am currently up to page 88, so this is not a review of the entire book, but I felt so strongly about warning people I had to write now. I am already looking on Amazon for alternatives.
   
   1. Errors: There are errors in the text and the images, some more serious than others, that can leave you confused and scrambling around various resources for answers.
   
   2. The visual style is the only saving grace behind this book, because it's only through the pictures that I can understand what's going on. The copy itself is like reading a bad technical manual.
   
   4. The approach seems utterly uncohesive and at no point do you actually feel you're progressing towards building anything. Each page reads as if they took their appendices and simply explained them, rather than building up a more profound understanding of what is essentially learning a new language.
   
   This series of books has some very good consumer feedback, and I am sure other titles are very good, because the idea behind the format is essentially a sound one, but it really looks as if a minimum of thought and care went into producing this one and I cannot recommend it to anyone.



2. This book has good information, but is poorly organized. The "lessons" are not organized in a logical way.
   Plus, the text itself has grammatical errors and the illustrations show Web sites with laughably bad errors. For instance, "We takes the risk out of buying . . ." And "Directors Marketinging Book."



3. I am VERY disappointed with this book. It was the required reading for a barnesandnoble.com online class, so I mistakenly figured it would be a good book.
   
   I can handle all the typos and grammatical errors, for example;
   "...how to add dynamic content o your Web page..."
   "To perform tasks in t his book,..."
   "Changing the color and font enables you to emphasize important information or to make your Web pages more aesthetically pleasing or more readability."
   
   However, in many instances, the code in the examples has errors too! I don't know how anyone who is trying to learn HTML, CSS, or XHTML without prior knowledge could learn from this book.
   
   That being said, I do like the layout of the book and the numerous examples and pictures. If the editing department had done their job, this might actually be a good book.



4. I learned alot from this book. I would recommend this book to anyone who was interested in web design and development.

5 comments about Professional ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX (Programmer to Programmer).

1. Matt and Dan's ASP.NET AJAX book is an excellent one. It is packed with useful content, and contains a lot of great code examples that demonstrate real-world usage examples.
   
   The book covers all of the core ASP.NET AJAX Scenarios:
   
   - Server-Side Controls (UpdatePanel, UpdateProgress, etc)
   - Client-side libraries
   - Networking Stack
   - Application Services
   - AJAX Control Toolkit
   
   Matt Gibbs is the development manager of ASP.NET at Microsoft, and led the ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 development team - so obviously knows his stuff well. Dan Wahlin is a great trainer and presenter of ASP.NET and ASP.NET AJAX. You are in very good hands with them.
   
   I highly recommend this book.



2. Just got a copy of this new book on ASP.NET AJAX and it looks great. It should be because Matt is the Development Manager for ASP.NET so he deeply understands the product. He has also worked on several other books and I can personally attest to the fact that he can indeed form complete sentences. ;-)
   Seriously, this book is straight from the source and contains good, detailed information about the ASP.NET AJAX release that applies equally well today and in Visual Studio 2008



3. I have nearly completed my first tour through the book. It is well-organized, written with considerable clarity, possesses a reasonable number of focused examples, and covers ALL the bases in good depth, including deployment and custom controls. Some very minor deficiencies are a scattered few forward references and a muddling of the details of JSON serialization when accessing web services, but the errata and future printings will hopefully clear these up soon.
   
   Thua I strongly recommend it as the FIRST book to introduce yourself seriously to mainstream AJAX 2.0.



4. Very well-organized, easy to follow and provided a great starting point for the ASP.NET AJAX framework. Even if you've been surfing the ASP.NET AJAX documentation you'll still pickup some good tips and information from this book.



5. I had little knowledge on the subject of AJAX, but this book enlightened me. I could scope out the capabilities of this technology by reading a few key chapters. Now I understand the AJAX used in the enterprise level application I now maintain, plus a lot more. If you're a .NET programmer, I think you'll like the way this material is presented.

5 comments about PHP 5 / MySQL Programming for the Absolute Beginner (For the Absolute Beginner).

1. The book seems to do an OK job of getting the major points across, but I would have liked to see a clearer progression of information with a separate section for a quick reference. I like the CD with the code available to use. That is a valuable asset for the book.



2. This book is physically easy for me to read. It is clearly written and helpful for me as a rank beginner in PHP programming. The reader needs some background in programming with HTML and CSS.



3. Unfortunately this book, despite its best efforts, falls flat on its face when it comes to teaching php. I am a beginner to the language and I ordered the book recently to begin teaching myself. The code in the book did not work at all, even when I uploaded the pages stored on the CD rom directly to my site they didn't work properly, which let me know that even though I'm new to the language the errors weren't my fault. The script is incomplete and poorly written, as told to me by professional web site authors I know. It lacks the most important parts of the script to make them work and if you're on your own you won't be able to figure out why it isn't working, unless you find the answer in a forum or something. I recommend this book instead, PHP 6 and MySQL 5 for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide. The code in this book actually works and any errors are insignificant plus have corrections online at the author's site. Don't make the same mistake I did in buying this book. It will just disappoint you and waste your money.



4. My son was looking for an introduction to web development, and I couldn't think of a better place than PHP with which to start.
   
   I found the author's writing style very enjoyable - and was particularly impressed by his choice of example programs. For instance, the chapter on databases introduces concepts using an adventure game!
   
   The only problem I had was the lightweight treatment of Content Management Systems (in particular the discussion of PHP-Nuke), which ended up being much too generic to be of use.
   
   However, that doesn't really detract from the quality of the rest of the book, which is highly recommended.



5. The authors writing style leaves a lot to be desired. He's hard to understand sometimes. He uses a game to illustrate the concepts of PHP & understanding the game was more difficult than the code. It's not bad - it's just OK. I'd recommend Charles Wyke-Smith "Codin for the Web" for a clear explanation of rudimentary PHP MySQL concepts with real world examples - not stupid games.

5 comments about C# 2008 For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)).

1. I've read the 2005 version and this 2008 version and all I can say is these guys know their stuff. I've read many books on C# and this is the best book I've read. By programmers for programmers. Outstanding examples and explanations.
   
   If you authors are reading this, please write more books. I'd like to request a dedicated book on OOP concepts and class design using C#.
   
   Keep up the Great work!!!



2. I bought this book hoping to learn from scratch - as one would assume you can normally do from a "For Dummies" book. I own 12 "For Dummies" books on various subjects, but this has by far been the most scattered in flow and difficult to process.
   While the book exhausts you with lengthy dissertations on all of the possible variable types before you even get to write anything useful, it then completely leaves out the really useful information and techniques like how to write a program that can save text output into a separate file. There is no CD included, leaving you to have to go to the author's website and download all of the support files you'll need to cover your topics of interest. While I did find a "bonus" chapter on the author's website that covered creating programs that read from and write to text files, the code he published with it had errors and would not compile.
   Finally, I say there is no "mid ground" because it seems he can only take you along at either 5mph or 200mph - there isn't much in-between. There is a lot of "we'll cover that later" (my quotes) but it doesn't get covered in time to help you understand what he's discussing just a few pages later.
   BIG disappointment. I'm now looking for another tutorial source on C#.



3. Caveat: I'm one of the two authors of C# 2008 For Dummies (I did all of the 2005 and 2008 update work).
   
   I invite reviews of C# 2008 For Dummies, regardless of your level of experience or background. For myself, I find reader reviews very helpful in deciding whether to buy a book.
   
   C# 2008 For Dummies is aimed at beginning programmers, but it probably sells more copies to more experienced programmers, many of them looking to pick up a new language or break into .NET programming.
   
   Beginners will find very simple, easy-to-follow examples, with chapters building up to more sophisticated techniques. Additionally, my Web site for the book includes many supplementary articles on topics I lacked room to cover in the pages. The site also includes all of the example code for the book (well over 100 small programs that focus on one thing at a time), 7 extra bonus chapters, and other resources.
   
   More experienced hands will find pretty complete coverage of the C# language. Note that the emphasis is on the language, not on its many, many applications, such as Web programming, database programming, and so on. I discuss language features (some of which are very cool) in a context that is uncluttered with advanced features. (You can find more advanced features and techniques and applications such as Web coding in books from Wiley (the For Dummies folks) and other publishers as well as Web sites that offer many examples, articles, and lots of code. Try C# Station, C# Help, Code Project, CodeGuru.net, and more--Google for C#.)
   
   New in the 2008 edition are old features not previously included, such as delegates, events, and collections. Also brand new features: Language Integrated Query (LINQ), lambda expressions, the var keyword, extension methods, array and collection initializers, anonymous classes, query syntax. Many topics have been extended or elaborated--the book is about 25% longer than the 2005 edition.
   
   So please consider buying C# 2008 For Dummies if you're in one of its demographic categories. I don't think you'll regret it. And don't forget to check out the Web site at csharp102.info--it may help you decide whether to buy the book. And you can always contact me by email at sphars1@yahoo.com if you have questions, find errors, and so on.
   
   I hope you enjoy reading C# 2008 For Dummies as much as I enjoyed writing it.
   
   Best,
   Chuck Sphar



4. The book provides a gentle introduction to C#, in line with the other texts of this series. The pace of reading is mild, giving plenty of time to assimilate each new aspect of C#.
   
   Along the way, you learn the essentials of object oriented programming. Using a language that is fully OO, unlike C++, and like java.
   
   Perhaps there could have been [more] problems provided, to give the reader a challenge, and to really help her learn this stuff.



5. Great book, one of the few I have read all the way through. Some of the concepts where not new to me. The ones that where are well explained. This would be a great companion book for anyone wanting to learn C# with almost no programming experience. For people with programming experience in other languages this book is all you need to get started.