Many books introduce C#, but if you don't have the time to read 1200 pages, Accelerated C# 2008 gives you everything you need to know about C# 2008 in a concentrated 500 pages of must-know information and best practices.

C# 2008 offers powerful new features, and Accelerated C# 2008 is the fastest path to mastery, for both experienced C# programmers moving to C# 2008 and programmers moving to C# from another object-oriented language.

You'll quickly master C# syntax while learning how the CLR simplifies many programming tasks. You'll also learn best practices that ensure your code will be efficient, reusable, and robust. Why spend months or years discovering the best ways to design and code C# when this book will show you how to do things the right way, right from the start?

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 12 Ratings

Decent Book, But the Audience is Wrong - 2008-07-03
Reviewer Rating:
Overall, this is a decent book. But, simply because the author didn't properly define his audience, I have to mark it down a notch. From the 1st sentence of the "About This Book" section in the Introduction (on page xxvi), the author states:

"I assume that you already have a working knowledge of some object-oriented programming language, such as C++, Java, or Visual Basic .NET."

So, I assumed that since I'd already learned C, C++, and Java, but just dabble in programming, I could use this book instead of plowing through another 1200 page book that starts out with a chapter on sequential statements, a chapter on conditional statements, a chapter on iterative statements, etc.. But, that was a faulty assumption. Instead, this book is REALLY designed for programmers who've done some fairly advanced work in other object-oriented languages UNDER THE WINDOWS .NET FRAMEWORK. For instance, at the start of Chapter 1 (page 1, paragraph 1, line 1), it says:

"Since this is a book for experienced object-oriented developers, I assume that you already have some familiarity with the .NET runtime."

And, on page 231:

"I'm assuming that you're already familiar with the nongeneric collection types and collection interfaces available in .NET 1.1--specifically, those defined in the System.Collections and System.Collections.Specialized namespaces."

So, if you're not very familiar with .NET, you'll have problems with the book. Also, the author tends to slip out of even that "advanced .NET programmer" audience in another way: he sometimes writes to programmers who've used previous versions of C#. For instance, when he introduces Delegates in chapter 10, he never really ties them to the C/C++ model of function pointers or Java's inner classes. The closest he comes is saying they implement a callback function.

The author also assumes knowledge of various design patterns from the "Gang of Four's" Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series) book (and a few other sources, too). Here are the patterns he references and the pages where he makes those references:

- Abstract Factory: p 451
- Bridge: p 262
- Collection: p 36
- Disposable: pp 3, 19, 106, 187, 189, 374, 376, 377
- Expert: pp 172, 193
- IOU: pp 320, 354, 355, 362
- Monitor: p 337
- Non-Virtual interface (NVI): pp 117, 143, 144, 236, 238, 365, 366
- Observer: p 265
- Singleton: pp 74, 143 285, 377, 381
- Strategy: pp 122, 266, 276, 291
- Template Method: p 366
- Visitor: pp 424, 437

There are also some smaller things that are a bit irritating. First of all, his code formatting is inconsistent. His use of braces ({}) changes constantly. Sometimes he'll start a block with the first "{" immediately following a keyword on the same line. At other times, he'll put it at the start of the next line. Sometimes, he uses both in the same hunk of code. Ditto for his positioning of instance variables (fields in C# terminology). Sometimes he'll have them at the top of the class. Other times, he'll have them at the bottom. Sometimes, both. And, least importantly, he uses too many forward references (especially referring to Chapter 13).

Overall, if you happen to be an advanced programmer who programs in an object-oriented .NET environment for a living and you want to pick up the latest version of C#, this is a very good book. It certainly won't bore you with trivial stuff, and the way the author presents things will be very helpful. But, if you're just a dabbler with limited experience, the book will probably be confusing. As such, I can only rate it an OK 3 stars out of 5. In future printings, if the author merely revises the stated audience to reflect the actuality, and standardizes the formatting of the code, this book would easily be a 4 star book.

Mediocre for advanced C# devs, good for intermediate - 2008-09-02
Reviewer Rating:
After reading the reviews praising this book, I had high expectations. While the author's prose is clearer than most, it suffers from the usual technical-author-verbosity. I found the overall content of the book lacking, while several sections were very well presented.

The author switches between beginning and intermediate C# topics throughout the text, which can be a bit jarring. For example, he spends about 3 pages introducing delegates before getting into meatier issues. I would have loved a book 1/3rd of this length that skipped intro to intermediate topics.

The author provides constant comparisons and references to how things are done in C++. However, the usefulness of each section rarely exceeds what you can find in MSDN or Effective C#: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C# (Effective Software Development Series).

There are moments where the author delves into less frequently used features or advanced topics, such as using yield, SafeHandles, or exception neutrality. These are usually presented in an overly complex manner that left me re-reading MSDN or the C# Language Reference more often than not.

There is excellent use of IL to illustrate what's going on behind various language constructs. The chapter on threading is well presented and worth a read.

The best practices embedded in the "Note" subsections can be useful but, again, these ideas are better presented in Effective C# or the various "patterns" pages on MSDN.

Beginners should avoid this book -- this is not an intro text. Intermediate C# developers may want to skim it to ensure they're aware of the latest language features and catch any tips they may not be aware of. Advanced C# developers can probably pass on this book -- you'll likely know all of the content already and the ideas are presented more thoroughly elsewhere.

Pretty Good - 2008-05-28
Reviewer Rating:
This is a pretty good book. This author is obviously a strong C++ programmer or was for many years, so his approach to the writing about
C# is very C++ bias which I think is very refreshing and pretty neat, to compare the OLD way and the NEW way. Dont get me wrong I am not implying
C++ is dead, I think is still by far the strongest most powerfull language ever, i am just saying C# is more practical, more FOR NOW, for the 21th Century..............
I like many 1990s programmers started in C, C++ so C# is like back to the good old days. C was one of my favorite language for many years..I did some java but I feel C# has gone beyond it by far.

Step Up Your Skill A Notch With Accelerated C# 2008 - 2008-08-07
Reviewer Rating:
This book briefly covers the basics and then shows more advanced ways of applying the basics to the problem at hand. I felt like reading this book was worth my time as I began to understand how a seasoned C# programmer thinks when solving a problem. Trey Nash is trying to impart tidbits of experience he has gained in the trenches of writing complex multi-threaded apps. He brings in a lot of object and pattern theory by showing both the "wrong" and "right" way to do something. This clearly shows the benefits of using patterns and good object theory when constructing applications.

Accelerated way to learn C# - 2009-05-20
Reviewer Rating:
It's an excellent book about C#. It teaches you the language in a really good and fast way...
I recommend it to everyone!

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