Microsoft C# Language Specifications

Rating:
Summary: obsolete before read
Review: c# is not released yet and ms still introduces changes, i.e. a printed language reference is obsolete before even read. for all who are using c# (beta 1), the language reference documentation comes with the package - just look at "c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio.NET\Vc7\C# Language Reference.doc"

Rating:
Summary: About average
Review: The content of this book ships with the MSDN library for Visual Studio.Net, at least most of it. The book drops out some of the holes in the MSDN library, which gives it a slight advantage.

As far as technical merit, this book rates above the rest of the C# books, with perhaps the exception of Gunnerson's book, which is sometimes a bit harder to read for understanding. Funny comment actually, since this is a spec doc and his book is supposed to teach.

The best book of the lot, as far as learning goes, is the Wrox book. Unfortunately, it is a bit inconsistent and goes from strong to weak depending on which chapter you read. It also spends a lot of time on the tools, which is not the reason you buy a book on a language.

If you are an experienced or intermediate developer, you can get a lot out of this book. If you are a beginner, I might hold off for something a bit easier to read through. You can get through this book, but I believe Inside C# or Wrox's book might be a better starting point.

Rating:
Summary: An Official Reference and not a Tutorial
Review: There are a lot of C# books now available but they are introductions into .NET using C# or an comparation with other languages or simply a language tutorial. For an experienced developer such books are very time-consuming: He or she wants to read quickly the details about the language syntax, semantic and structure in a well-structured form.

The new Microsoft book is now the answer to such developers: It is a well-structured book about all details of the language, simply to understand for any language-reference experienced reader. It contains a lot of small source examples and it is official - written by persons in or near the C# design team.

The structure is enhanced by many references; unfortunately, the references have only chapter numbers and no page numbers, which reduces the reference-reading speed. And I miss an index containing all keywords, syntax description names etc. So special things are a little difficult to find. Otherwise I would give 5 stars and not only 4.

The book is available with identical contents on the MSDN library April 2001 (including fast hyperlinks and full-text search), so this book is not a must for every .NET programmer but for all guys who like printed paper more than filled windows at screen.