Description

I've been a fan of Andrew Troelsen's C# books since he released the first one, "C# and the .NET Platform", back in 2003. It's rare to find a technical book that does a good job not only of inculcating sound fundamentals, but also of including more complex scenarios and uses to which those basics can be applied. The last one that so impressed me was Wrox's "Professional Active Server Pages 2.0" ( http://tinyurl.com/22dgku ), released way back in 1998. I'm proud to add Andrew Troelsen's newest book, "Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform, Fourth Edition" ( http://tinyurl.com/22dgku ) to that list.

Andrew provides the requisite introductory chapter: who the book is written for, and the history of .NET and its myriad components. However, it's not just filler -- even this early in the book, he provides an overview of the Common Type System (CTS) and examples to illustrate these facts. Subsequent chapters bring to light successive layers of how to code in C#, but follow this same pattern. Some concepts might be a bit too advanced for a novice, but these are the exception, not the rule, and can be safely ignored until you're more comfortable with the basics. The book's typography also maked it very easy for me to read for extended periods of time -- that's just my opinion, of course, but I'm sticking to it.

It's easy to drop $50 - $60 on a technical book, only to realize it's practically worthless after-the-fact. However, I've been so happy with Andrew Troelsen's C# books to date that I own all of them -- and will be purchasing "Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform, Fourth Edition" for $38 from Amazon shortly.

Updated Jan 28, 2008