Book Review: C# In Depth

C# In Depth
Author: Jon Skeet
Publisher: Manning
No. Pages: 392

 

Jon Skeet does a great job of demonstrating the differences between the features of C# 1, 2 and 3.  An abundant amount of detail is provided on the history of the features and how they evolved into C# 3.  There are also some great analogies used throughout the book.

In my opinion this book is a perfect size.  It is 392 pages, but really seems like more due to the amount of detail.

Some of the major items this book covers -

• Generics
• Delegates
• Anonymous Methods
• Partial Types
• Expression Trees

In closing, this is a great book for intermediate to advanced developers.  I believe even beginners will pick up some great concepts.

Happy reading…

Book Review: Lifehacker - 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day

Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day
Author: Gina Trapani
Publisher: Wiley
No. Pages: 300

 

This is a great book.  I came away with so many ideas on how to be more productive.  Most of the tricks discussed are cross-platform which means you are shown how to use it in Windows and on the Mac.

Below are some of the hacks that have helped me:

• Hack 18: Automatically backup your files
• Hack 29: Batch resize photos
• Hack 34: Carry your life on a flash drive
• Hack 42: Use GMail as an Internet hard drive
• Hack 52: Organize My Documents
• Hack 61: Setup a morning dash
• Hack 71: Extend your web browser
• Hack 72: Get 10 must have bookmarklets

This book is also a perfect companion to the Lifehacker website.  It will stay on my shelf for a long time to come.

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Happy Reading!!!

Book Review: Pro C# w/.NET 3.0

Pro C# With .NET 3.0
Author: Andrew Troelsen
Publisher: Apress (January 15, 2007)
No. Pages: 1250

This book is great for just about any level (Junior-Senior). The first couple of chapters are beginner level with a great introduction to the C# language and the .NET 3.0 framework.

The sample code in this book is great and fairly easy to understand.

Below are some of the major items this book covers –

• C# Language in general
• .NET Assemblies and Libraries
• Web Applications and XML Web Services
• Introduction to WPF, WCF and WF
• Introduction to LINQ

Again, this is a great reference book for any level of developer. It was bought for me by my company and I have gone back to it over and over again.

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Happy Reading!!!

My Reading List

This is a list of books that I plan on reading. I am trying to read more, so listing what I plan to read here is my first step toward commitment.

Pro C# with .NET 3.0 - by Andrew Troelsen (Reading now)
A complete A-to-Z reference for using C# with the .NET 2.0 platform and the .NET 3.0 extensions.

Anxious 9 to 5 - by Larina Kase, Joe Vitale, Martin M. Antony (Reading now)
This book offers simple and effective techniques to get your workplace anxiety under control once and for all so you can enjoy work and be more productive.

The ASP.NET 2.0 Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks - by Scott Allen, Jeff Atwood, Wyatt Barnett, Jon Galloway, Phil Haack
An ASP.NET 2.0 book that just helps you get things done! This book contains a collection of 101 best practice, object oriented solutions that you can easily adapt to your own projects.

Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day - by Gina Trapani
The 88 “life hacks” — clever shortcuts and lesser-known, faster ways to complete a task — in this book are some of the best in Lifehacker.com’s online archive.

ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts in Action - by Darren Neimke
This book demystifies portal design, development, maintenance, and deployment. In over 400 code-packed pages, ASP.NET expert Darren Neimke shares his deep understanding of the controls and services that make up the portal framework.

.NET Gotchas - by Venkat Subramaniam
The ultimate guide for efficient, pain-free coding, .NET Gotchas from O’Reilly contains 75 common .NET programming pitfalls–and advice on how to work around them.

Dreaming in Code - by Scott Rosenberg
This book documents the state of software, the Internet, and everything circa 2006 through the lens of Chandler, an as-yet-unfinished software application for the management of personal information.

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I’d better get busy reading…

Book Review

Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005: From Novice to Professional
Author: Matthew MacDonald
Publisher: Apress (January 27, 2006)
No. Pages: 1184

This is a great book for someone needing to learn ASP.NET using the C# language. The author goes over everything from building a simple web page to web parts. The examples are easy to follow and understand enabling a beginner to be productive with this book.

Most of the examples in this book build on each other, so by the time you are finished with a chapter, you have a working web application that you can continue to build upon.

Advanced ASP.NET developers will likely not gain as much from this book as beginner to immediate developers. Since this book covers so many aspects of ASP.NET, it is a book that I will reference for some time.

The free ebook version of this book was extremely useful as well.

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Happy Reading!!!