Review - Murach's C#

Murach's C#
by Joel Murach, Doug Lowe

This is an excellent book for the beginning C# programmer. The book uses a "paired-page" format where the page on the left gives descriptions of a concept and the page on the right provides examples, syntax, and additional information. Although this does lead to some repetition, overall it provides clearer explanations of concepts that are laid out in front of you all at once. It also makes it easier to go back, find, and review information read previously.

The book starts with a tour of C# which leans heavily on Visual Studio. The first three chapters cover using VS.NET and very little C# code is presented. In fact, explanations of how to work in Visual Studio are provided throughout the book. The next two sections, covering 12 chapters, cover the details of programming in C# and writing object oriented code. The coverage of OO is excellent and it will remove much of the mystery associated with OO programming. Database programming using ADO.NET is covered at a good level of detail in five chapters. The final section covers reading and writing files including using the .NET classes to read and write XML files.

In many ways this book provides a level of detail not found in other books with plenty of code samples to help clarify the material. The only thing not covered is ASP and web forms. I can highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning C# or to anyone planning to teach a C# programming course. The book is well designed as a textbook for a programming class. It includes objectives, a summary, a list of important terms, and programming exercises at the end of each chapter. A student workbook and an instructor CD are available.

This earned 5 stars on Amazon. The book is published by Mike Murach & Associates.

The review can be seen on Amazon on My Amazon Reviews page.