The C# Player's Guide (3rd Edition)

C# is the very language I've started learning so programming is new to me. I've struggled to learn via Udemy and YouTube because listening to someone explain it just doesn't land well with me. However reading lets me absorb it better. And this book is so well written, it explains it casually whilst also going into quite a bit of detail. The best part is that its written as one big game / RPG system with levelling up which really encourages you to not only keep track of where you are but also encourages you to progress and get to the next level and learn more. Highly recommend.

I just want to thank this guy for sticking it out and completing this treasure of knowledge, coding has opened up a whole avenue of difference in my life and definitely for the better. He explains things in a great way, gives you objectives to code explaining what needs to happen (sort of hints) but doesn't give you the answer on the page so you have to figure it out for yourself, he stores the correct code for each objective online so you can compare your code with his when your finished - but it not being on the next or same page saved me from cheating myself out of learning I think. All the basics are covered in the first 18 chapters, then more advanced stuff within the rest. I think It's a sweet buy if your interested in learning.

Excellent introduction to C# - a good way to start programming the language. I had programmed in C++/MFC before but not for several years. This book got me up to speed very quickly. It is quite readable, although not quite as clear in the more complicated areas as it could be - nevertheless it is a great starting point. This book only covers the C# language and not the use of WPF which is pretty essential for real windows programmes. Hence a combination of this and Matthew MacDonald's WPF is probably a good way to start.

Parts 1 and 2 on the basics are very, very good - 5 stars. Part 3 onwards (about one third of the way through) nose-dives into a generally 3 star standard. A great deal of effort has clearly gone into explaining the basics of the language in Parts 1 and 2 - programming in general, variables, arrays, conditions, loops and the like - and there's a particularly good explanation of the difference between 'reference variables' and 'value variables' and the use of the stack/heap, perhaps the clearest I've ever read. But from Part 3 onwards, starting with object orientation, the explanations are not so clear; re-inforcing examples are less frequent; and there are many sentences (perhaps even dozens) that have simply not been checked for grammar. It's meant that I've had to look up a lot of stuff online before I've understood it, although perversely I've probably learnt more thoroughly that way because I've had to work hard to get the information! My overall feel is that this is a very good writer, with a flair for explaining things well. In fact there ARE spots from part 3 onwards where you the original inspired writing. But something went wrong. Maybe he ran out of time, or some over-zealous editor chopped half his examples away to squeeze it into 300-odd pages. For £18.98 I'd more or less recommend it, but with the caveat that you should be prepared to put a lot of work in yourself to tease out full information about object orientation and advanced topics generally.

This book delivers what it promises, and quite efficiently. It provides all the basics, and it is a pain to read all that after learning so many languages in the past, so that part of the book is mostly useful for beginners. Still, the author's informal style makes even that reading tolerable, and when it comes to the features specific to C#, it quickly becomes more interesting.

This book was recommended to me by my lecturer in my first year of university when I was struggling grasping programming. He said this is the book he seems to find help students the most with C#.. and boy did it ! It covers everything you need to need know from the very basics to the more intermediate and slightly more advanced techniques. I loved the book so much during the first year of my computer science degree that I kept renewing the library check out for it throughout the entire year and have now bought a copy as it just should sit in your collection as a programmer in my opinion. It took me from struggling to understand the fundamentals of programming when I was starting out to getting a pretty solid grasp and allowing me to progress. If that’s not worth the asking price I don’t know what is from a programming book.

This book is excellent. It is written in an easy to read, conversational style. Very clear instructions and good challenging problems to solve to aid in your learning. If you can't get a teacher and have to use a book for C# then use this one!

This is an excellent, accessible guide to C# - very readable, especially when compared to some of the more dry books such as the Microsoft official guides. RB Whitaker explains things in a clear way but without being patronising, providing enough detail for a beginner while also giving some deeper info for more experienced programmers. Very impressed.

I started XNA programming a few years back and found RB's website and his tutorials over a year ago. He has some of the best C# and XNA free tutorials out there. I would recommend checking them out. When I heard he was writing a book, I was really excited because his tutorials are great. I was surprised, the book was even better than I expected. Before getting into the book, let me describe my background with C#. I've been programming longer than I care to remember in C++, Assembler, VB, and even doing some light professional programming in C#. So, I'm not exactly new to C# or programming. Still, I never actually learned C#. I had been doing VB for years and switched over to VB.Net when it came out. Between that and knowing C++, I woke up one morning and realized that I already knew C# and just started programming. Because of that, there have been some gaps in my C# knowledge. I actually wanted to be the first one to review this book because I was so excited about it. I immediately bought it and started reading. This book is less "dry" reading than most programming books, but its still a programming book. It had been so long since I had sat down and read a programming book cover to cover that I had forgotten how much work it can be trying to read a technical tome. But again, I would say this book was as easy as any other programming book I've ever read to get through. I made it about 2/3rds of the way through the book, even learning a few things in spite of having been programming in C# for a few years semi-professionally. And then Microsoft abandoned XNA and I pretty much lost all interest in C# and Microsoft in general. It was actually Microsoft's decision on XNA that was mostly responsible for me never completely finishing the book and ultimately not writing the review. But anyway, it was such a good book that I decided I should go ahead and write the review based on reading about 2/3rds of the way through it, as someone who knew C# fairly well before reading the book. That makes it a little difficult for me to take the perspective of an absolute beginner, but it appears to me that this book would be perfect for beginners as well. Basically, this is by far the best C# book I've read. It doesn't cover XNA at all, but if you wanted to do XNA (even though Microsoft no longer supports it) through Mono or something, I would strongly recommend reading this book first. The book is written in an understandable way so that even an absolute beginner can start with this book. And yet at the same time, it takes you through the intermediate level of C# programming all the way to the door of advanced C# programming (to go much further than this book takes you, you would have to get into the internals of Windows or Assembly language or something along those lines). Even though the title suggests a game, this book is not about game programming (or any specific type of programming); its about learning C#. And it does not disappoint. I would recommend it for anyone from a teenager wanting to start learning programming on their own, to IT professionals that think they might have a few gaps in their knowledge. It pretty much covers everything. And RB has a gift for teaching. He's able to take advanced concepts and make them accessible to anyone. I think that's probably the reason to buy this book over any other C# book on the market. I own a few C# books, and this one is certainly my favorite. So, to sum it up. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn, or get better at C# programming.

Libro molto ben fatto. Purtroppo non entra nel dettaglio nei vari argomenti. I capitoli che riguardano argomenti importanti come i thread, I delegate o il meccanismo async/await sono di 5 o 7 pagine ciascuno. Però essendo una player guide si sapeva. Spiega tutto a partire dalle basi

Excellent ouvrage pour les débutants. Très pédagogique, l'auteur prends son temps pour introduire les concepts l'un après l'autre de manière progressive et logique. Ce n'est pas un livre de "recettes" et il ne s'intéresse pas à une finalité particulière: le lecteur n'apprendra pas à concevoir une base de données ou un jeu vidéo à travers ce livre. Ce livre est un cours magistral, une introduction aux principes de la programmation et du langage C#. Il est facile d'accès, bien écrit et construit d'une façon très pédagogique, qui permet à chaque fois d'aborder un nouveau concept avec toutes les connaissances pour être en mesure de le comprendre. Je recommande vivement pour toute personne souhaitant s'initier à la programmation. Le livre est en anglais.

El autor explica perfectamente todos los conceptos de C# y .NET, sobretodo la parte de "Programación orientada a objetos". Aunque el libro esté escrito en ingles es muy fácil de entender. Recomendado para quién no sepa nada de programación o tenga unos conocimientos básicos.

Trying to refresh and advance more in c# in 2022, this is a good resource for the price. It's easy to read, has interesting examples and covers alot. 5 stars!