Microsoft Visual C# .NET

Rating:
Summary: "Microsoft Visual C#.Net"
Review: Bad...REALLY bad...This book claims to be for the beginning programmer, but unfortunately, it takes the....blah,blah,blah-"OK, got it? Good!"...blah,blah,blah..."OK, got it? Good!"...approach. In other words, this book VERY QUICKLY, in far too FEW pages, piles new concept on top of new concept WITHOUT giving enough examples. Exercises at the end of each chapter often follow a different format than examples given throughout the chapters. In chapter text, example code is given with some minor quick-over explanation (if you can call it that), and then in-chapter coding exercises are given often with little or no explanation as to how the code works...e.g. you get a breakdown on how the code works on one, but not the other example. You find you are TEACHING YOURSELF BY TRIAL AND ERROR, and referring back to the book only as a reference. Perhaps that would be a better title for the book: "Learning C# By Trial-And-Error".
My gut tells me this book was really written in a hurry. I suspect Farrell was under a rough deadline or something. She obviously knows her subject very well, but unfortunately she assumes that by stating a fact once, with little or no reference or analogy, the reader will get it the first time. An ANALOGY might be: I KNOW how to bake a cake, and I assume that even though you've NEVER baked a cake in your life, if I tell you ONE TIME VERY QUICKLY all the details of how to bake that cake, that you'll be able to do it too! Sorry! New concepts don't cement that way.
This book should be AT LEAST twice as thick, giving far more examples for each new concept and breaking each concept down into MUCH GREATER detail...that is *IF* Joyce Farrell is attempting to write for the beginner who is new to the concept of Object Oriented Programming as well as the specifics of the C# language.

Rating:
Summary: Where is the zero star option
Review: I am using this book as part of course curriculum and I am sad to say that this has to be without a doubt the worst computer book I have ever read. Reading this book makes my eyes want to bleed it is so bad.

It glosses over topics such as arrays, classes & class interaction and only briefly mentions recursion. Add to that the fact it does NOT even cover multi-dimensional arrays or any type of dynamic data handling. How do I store data if I don't want to cap how much data can be entered?

Not only is the information lacking it is poorly structured. It "covers" classes before it goes into selection ,repetition and arrays. This seems a little backwards to me.

Avoid at all costs.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent programming book
Review: This book is used as a textbook for computer science majors at a local communitry college. And interestingly, I found it to be the most comprehensive programming book I have ever read of either school textbook or mass-marketed (like SAMS).

I have some programming background as a CS major, so alot of the constructs of the language already look familiar having studied Java and C++, etc. In fact C# is just that--a slightly modified Java for the Microsoft .Net platform. Now, I actually prefer C# to Java.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking to learn the basics of C#. But, would not recommend it to anyone without prior experience of at least one professionally taught programming class. Of course an experienced programmer will want to breeze through much of the chapters which will serve only the purpose of making sure any slight quirks in syntax are understood--such as the way C# allows for printing of variables with curly braced symbols.

One thing I really like about the way Joyce Farrell writes is that she explains all the syntax of the language she presents right away, instead of writing "You don't need to worry about that now" or "You won't understand this part of the language yet anyway" as so many annoyingly condescending computer learning books do.

I plan on buying more of Joyce Farrell's books because I enjoy reading the clarity in which she presents the subjects.

If your familiar with object oriented languages and want to learn the basics of C#, buy this book. Conveniently, the books also supplies a trial version of Visual Studio .Net which she requires as needed to compile C# for her book. If you can't get student software discounts, microsoft's compiler is expensive. However, I believe there may be free non-microsoft C# compilers that can be used with the book instead but am not sure.