The first edition of this book was released at the 2001 Tech-Ed conference in Atlanta, Georgia. At that time, the .NET platform was still a beta product, and in many ways, so was this book. This is not to say that the early editions of this text did not have merit—after all, the book was a 2002 Jolt Award finalist and it won the 2003 Referenceware Excellence Award. However, over the years that author Andrew Troelsen spent working with the common language runtime (CLR), he gained a much deeper understanding of the .NET platform and the subtleties of the C# programming language, and he feels that this fifth edition of the book is as close to a “final release” as he’s come yet.

This new edition has been comprehensively revised and rewritten to make it accurately reflect the C# 4 language specification for the .NET 4 platform. You’ll find new chapters covering the important concepts of dynamic lookups, named and optional arguments, Parallel LINQ (PLINQ), improved COM interop, and variance for generics.

If you’re checking out this book for the first time, do understand that it's targeted at experienced software professionals and/or graduate students of computer science (so don't expect three chapters on iteration or decision constructs!). The mission of this text is to provide you with a rock-solid foundation in the C# programming language and the core aspects of the .NET platform (assemblies, remoting, Windows Forms, Web Forms, ADO.NET, XML web services, etc.). Once you digest the information presented in these 25 chapters, you’ll be in a perfect position to apply this knowledge to your specific programming assignments, and you’ll be well equipped to explore the .NET universe on your own terms.

What you’ll learn

• Be the first to understand the .NET 4 platform and Visual C# 2010.
• Discover the ins and outs of the leading .NET technology.
• Learn from an award-winning author who has been teaching the .NET world since version 1.0.
• Find complete coverage of the WPF, WCF, and WF foundations that support the core .NET platform.

Who is this book for?


This book is for anyone with some software development experience who is interested in the new .NET Framework 4 and the C# language. Whether you are moving to .NET for the first time or are already writing applications on .NET 2.0 or .NET 3.5, this book will provide you with a comprehensive grounding in the new technology and serve as a complete reference throughout your coding career.

About the Apress Pro Series


The Apress Pro series books are practical, professional tutorials to keep you on and moving up the professional ladder.

You have gotten the job, now you need to hone your skills in these tough competitive times. The Apress Pro series expands your skills and expertise in exactly the areas you need. Master the content of a Pro book, and you will always be able to get the job done in a professional development project. Written by experts in their field, Pro series books from Apress give you the hard–won solutions to problems you will face in your professional programming career.

Customer Reviews & Comments
As a speaker and a User Group leader, I often get asked "Where do I start learning .NET?". My answer is always "Start with the Troelsen book from Apress". This has been true for previous versions of the framework, and after reading the latest edition covering .NET 4, it still holds true. Andrew takes you on the path that covers what the line of business software developer needs to know about the capabilities of .NET. The book begins with pertinent background information on the evolution of .NET, the Common Type System (CTS), the Common Language Runtime (CLR), and tools like ILDASM and Red-Gate's Reflector. Although not the most exiting reading if you are eager to start writing code, it is important for .NET developers to understand these concepts and tools. Chapter 2 discusses the various tools (including Notepad++) that can be used to develop in C#. The majority of the readers will be using Visual Studio, but it's good to know (and call out) that you do not have to purchase anything to write C# applications! Parts 2 and 3 take a deep dive into the C# language itself and along the way explains the pillars of Object Oriented Programming (OOP) and how to implement them in C# and .NET. This is extremely useful to the reader who does not have OOP experience, but is also useful to those coming from another OO language to learn the specifics in C#. Andrew does a great job explaining the more advanced topics like Generics, Lambdas, Language Integrated Query (LINQ), Multi-Threading, and (recent additions to the framework) the Dynamic Language Runtime and Parallel Programming. A chapter on Windows Workflow Foundation and Windows Communication Foundation provide a nice intro to those topics, three chapters on ADO.NET (including the new release of the Entity Framework), and whole sections devoted to Windows Presentation Foundation (used for Windows development) and ASP.NET (used web application development) are the core pieces required for standard line of business development. I have two disappointments with the book, the first is that the ADO.NET chapters include samples for binding data to Windows Forms (WinForms) and not Windows Presentation Foundation. I firmly believe the future of Windows Client development is WPF (not WinForms), and Andrew echoes this by focusing on WPF in the rest of the text. In fact, WinForms is relegated to an Appendix. My other disappointment is that the new ASP.NET MVC framework isn't discussed as an alternative to ASP.NET WebForms. There are plenty of books out there on MVC, but what I have really liked about these books is that they have presented all of the relevant options and left it up to the reader to decide which direction. In summary, this book is massive (weighing in at over 1500 pages), and is still the single place to start learning .NET and C#. I have always used his books on the language to learn all the options available as a developer (and get a decent understanding of those topics), then picked up books that do a deep dive into the specifics (like Matthew McDonald's Pro WPF in C# 2010: Windows Presentation Foundation in .NET 4).

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