What To Know about learning to program in C#

Transcript

C sharp, not C pound or C hashtag is a programming language that’s used for desktop applications and Xbox games.

When I want to learn something  programming related , I first check to see if Murach has a book on it.  If they do, I buy it and work my way through it.  I’ll include a link to their website in the show notes.

If you’re a professional programmer, or you want to be, you should know this book publisher Murach.

I’ve been reading their books since the early 80’s.   When I used to program on a mainframe in assembler and COBOL.

When I’m hiring programmers, I always ask how they learned what they know.  Was it formal education, self taught, bootcamp whatever

I’m biased, if they mention that they read a Murach book I have a higher opinion of them.

Murach offers an unlimited guarantee.  If their book isn’t better than any other programming book you’ve ever used, both for training and for reference, you can send it back within 60 days for a full refund.

I’ve never sent a book back.

The only books that I’ve seen that are close to how good this is, are other books from Murach

Murach books are written for programmers, by programmers who also know how to write well.

From this C# book you’ll learn how to best use Visual Studio, the essentials of C#, the various data types, how to program a Windows Forms application

It explains object-oriented programming, SQL, ADO.Net and LINQ for database programming You’ll learn  the tools to debug your application, create and use classes, work with inheritance, the whole 9 yards

It doesn’t cover using version control, like git, but you can learn that online.

And it doesn’t cover WPF, Windows Presentation Framework because that’s a whole book in itself.

Check out “WPF unleashed” for a good book on that.

5 years ago, I taught myself C# from this book written by Joel Murach books and Anne Bame

I was already familiar with .Net and had certified on C++ and VisualBasic so this was just what I needed.

They update their books as technology advances . C# 2015 is available now with 50 more pages.

They’ve been at this for a long time so they’ve managed to think of everything.  Murach books are suitable for a beginner all the way up to an experienced programmer.

The main difference is, an experienced programmer can work through it faster.  You’re already familiar with many of the concepts.

Even though I’m experienced, i read it all.  I still learned some basics that I hadn’t understood.  I was confused about some things and it filled in some gaps.

All the source code and data for the applications in the book are a free download. These aren’t just code snippets, they provide 14 full applications.

I appreciate that the examples are all drawn from real life business applications. They use business classes such as customer, vendor, invoices and products, not something from biology.

At 4 pounds and 850 pages the binding is perfect for a book this size. I open it to any page and it lays flat so that I can easily use it for reference.

Also, they do something very cool which I haven’t seen in any other book.

On the left hand pages, they explain concepts and on the right hand page they show examples and syntax, yet there is hardly any white space.

If you want to learn to program in C# this is a great way to do it.

My thanks to the programmers I work with who suggested today’s show.

Is there something you’d like to know about? Email me at [email protected]

Oh, would you do me a favour?

Like this video and subscribe to this channel because that’s helpful.

Share it with a coworker.

Every time you talk about it, the more you find yourself putting it to use in your own life.  We will all become better programmers.

Thanks for watching!

Bye.

Show Notes

https://www.murach.com publisher of excellent technical training guides.