Head First C#

Author: Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene
Publisher:O'Reilly,2007
Pages: 758
ISBN: 978-0596514822
Aimed at: Novice c# developers
Rating: 4
Pros: A highly interactive approach for the complete beginner
Cons: The format results in a hefty tome
Reviewed by: Mike James

O’Reilly’s Head First series has a distinctive format – a cross between a notebook and a joke book – that you will love or hate. The mix of conversational style, lots of graphics, copious annotations and quiz elements seems to suit C# rather better than other topics but you should only buy it if you are prepared to work through the book rather than read it – as is pointed out in the pre-amble the activities are not optional.

As long as you like the book’s style, beginners will find it motivational. As author’s Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene point out the advent of C# 3.0 plus its availability in the free Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition make this a really good time to get to grips with C# and this book shows how the Visual Studio IDE makes it quick and easy to get started and only later on tackles object-oriented concepts.

The three hands-on labs in the book are all games – and if you are pleased with your efforts you can show them off on the book’s own website, from where you can also download the games’ executables if you need extra help and support. The book covers the newest C# feature for querying data in .NET collections, LINQ, and puts it to work in the final lab – Space Invaders – to make collision detection easier. This project also makes good use of timers, another of the book’s more advanced topics.

On the whole, however, this isn’t an advanced treatment and even when it tackles sophisticated ideas – encapsulation and polymorphism for example – it treats them in its informal, even glib, manner. If you get to the end of the book, which given it is more than 700 pages is quite a challenge, you are likely to want at least one more book about C# but at that point you’ll be ready for something with a more staid and stolid, and abbreviated, approach.

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Object-Oriented Python

Author: Irv Kalb
Publisher: No Starch Press
Date: January 2022
Pages: 416
ISBN: 978-1718502062
Print: 1718502060
Kindle: ‎ B0957SHYQL
Audience: Python developers
Rating: 3
Reviewer: Mike James
Python, Object-Oriented? Not a lot of programmers know that!



Balancing Coupling in Software Design

Author: Vlad Khononov
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
Date: October 2024
Pages: 320
ISBN: 978-0137353484
Print: 0137353480
Kindle: B09RV3Z3TP
Audience: General
Rating: 4.5
Reviewer: Kay Ewbank

This book looks in detail at coupling, the degree of interdependence between software modules, and how to use coupling  [ ... ]


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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 02 June 2010 )