About the Book

Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2003 Kick Start
By Steven Holzner
Sams Publishing
604 Pages
US $34.99
**** 

Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2003 Kick Start from Sams Publishing is a great book which examines all the important concepts of the C# programming language in a compact manner. It begins with a basic introduction about the book. The author also provides a list of online resources which are available for learning C# along with a short list of tutorials featured on some of the popular third party web sites. I accidentally found that my first article on C#, which was published at c-sharpcorner.com few years back, has been given as the first link in Page 6.

The first six chapters cover the fundamentals of the C# language with the help of charts and source code. An interesting point to note is that each source code section is followed by its output and the important parts of the same are highlighted. This will surely help the readers to grasp the logic behind the code before testing on their system. The book includes a short side note titled “For C++ Programmers” on some of the initial chapters. This will benefit existing programmers to compare the new concepts in C# with that of C++.

Chapter 7 discusses the development of windows applications in detail. The writing style is lucid and beginners can easily learn the topics without any difficulty. Almost all the important WinForm controls have been discussed with the help of source code examples and screenshots given at the required places. The author finishes chapter 7 with a discussion about Menus, MDI Applications and Dialog boxes. Chapter 8 examines the development of web applications (ASP.NET) using C#. This chapter covers all the important concepts in a compact manner. Some books cover these topics by dividing them into numerous chapters with lengthy explanations. Each chapter ends with a summary section titled “In Brief”. A short snippet explanation titled “Shop Talk” has been included in all the chapters to give more power to the topic being discussed.

Chapter 9 and 10 examines database programming with C#. Various aspects of ADO.NET, Data Controls, and Various .NET database classes have been covered in an elaborate manner. From my point of view, the explanations on these two chapters look somewhat confusing and it requires re-editing. Chapter 11 deals with the creation of User Controls with the help of screenshots. Chapter 12 delves deep into web services and its deployment. The author analyzes the functionalities of various classes along with a sample web service application. The remaining chapters deal with the advanced topics such as Assemblies, Security, Attributes and Reflection. The book ends with a chapter devoted to Multithreading and Remoting.

A disappointing factor with this book is that it doesn’t include a chapter about Crystal Reports. Even though there are numerous books available on the market for C#, none of them examines this core topic. The authors are not giving enough importance to this topic. I hope that the author will include one chapter about this topic in the next edition of the book.

This book would be a very handy reference material for all C# developers. This book really deserves a 4 star (****) rating.