Pat McGee - C#: A Beginners Guide

Pat McGee (Vancouver, British Columbia) is a software development instructor and curriculum developer at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. A former game programmer, McGee has co-authored books on Microsoft XNA Game Studio and is a recipient of Microsofts Most Valuable Professional award for DirectX and XNA. You may contact the author at http://HandsOnCoding.net.

Adam Barney is a nerd. After buying a Commodore 64 with money from his paper route in the fourth grade, hes never stopped learning about computers and how to make these stupid machines do cool things. Adam is now a Microsoft MVP (C#) and ASPInsider, and runs his own independent consulting company, Barney Consulting, in Lincoln, Nebraska.

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Special thanks to my wife, son, mom, and dadfor their love and support.

I wish to thank several people who have offered assistance or guidance, or who have been especially helpful during my career: Brian Anderson, Elsie Au, John Blackwell, Erik Benson, John Bowyer-Smyth, Stephen Cawood, Kevin Cudihee, Marlene Delanghe, Dr. Kim Dotto, Steve Eccles, Medhat Elmasry, Rhonda Ewashko, Lorraine Fentie, Dr. Mirela Gutica, Dr. Dean Hildebrand, Beata Kozma, Jason Harrison, Richard Hart, Uwe Helm, Bill Howorth, Thomas Lane, Shebia Leung, Kate Maclean, Paul Mills, Orrett Morgan, Jeff Parker, Brian Pidcock, Marilyn Stevenson, Ron Terencio, Marlena Vanderwal, Dr. Kimberly Voll, Michael Whyte, Debra Williams, and Dr. Benjamin Yu.

T his book offers a simple step-by-step approach to learning object-oriented programming with C# and the .NET Framework while also preparing readers for data-driven development. The content is comprehensive and to the point so that you can learn it quickly. Over 150 examples provide clear references to help you through the material with ease. For hands-on experience, over 150 self test questions throughout the book offer extra practice to solidify your understanding of the material learned. An additional 46 exercises are mixed in with the content throughout the book to help you focus on the most relevant concepts as they are discussed.

A thorough coverage of both LINQ-based and traditional database development is provided so that you can perform an adequately full range of queries and joins that any data-driven developer needs. Additional coverage of file input/output, XML handling, and JSON handling also offers you the flexibility you require to handle alternative sources of data with C#.

This book is great for the new programmer because it covers topics from the ground up, with no prior developer experience required. In addition, experienced programmers who are endeavoring to learn C# will get the no-frills language low-down they need to begin developing advanced data-driven applications in ASP.NET, Windows, or any other C#-based platform.

This book covers an introduction to Visual Studio for development and debugging, C# programming basics, a solid object-oriented programming foundation, collections and advanced C# structures, LINQ for database development, and traditional database development, as well as file, XML, and JSON handling.

To get the most from this book, read it sequentially and try all examples in Microsoft Visual Studio whenever possible. Visual Studio is the software required to write, edit, and run C# applications. If you do not have a paid edition, Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Express for Desktop is free and will run all examples in the book as long as you have Windows 7 or later.

Also, to improve your understanding during the discussions in each chapter, complete the Try This exercises when you encounter them. These exercises offer hands-on practice with the topics currently presented. To further your knowledge of each topic, complete the self test questions at the end of the chapter.