Marius Bancila - Learn C# Programming: A guide to building a solid foundation in C# language for writing efficient programs

A guide to building a solid foundation in C# language for writing efficient programs

Marius Bancila

Raffaele Rialdi

Ankit Sharma

BIRMINGHAMMUMBAI

Copyright 2020 Packt Publishing

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First published: April 2020

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ISBN 978-1-78980-586-4

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To my smart boys, Cristian and Bogdan, who love learning new things every day.

Marius

To my mom and dad, who ignited my passion with a Sinclair ZX81 when I was a child, and to my beautiful wife, Valeria, who has always supported me in my adventures. I love you!

Raffaele

To my mother, Vibha Sharma, for everything she did for me.

Ankit

Packt.com

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As a developer of the 2020s, it's hard to believe that there was a time in which the choice of programming language was crucial for the success of a software project, with each programming language coming with its own set of libraries defining the range of possible actions. Data access, for example, was a no-brainer in Visual Basic but hard to do in C++, for example. By the same token, calling into low-level Windows API functions was easy in C but sometimes impossible in Visual Basic.

Then came the .NET platform made of two distinct pillars. One pillar was an object-oriented framework defining a wide range of predefined behaviors. The other pillar was a language runtime able to support a variety of programming languages, including Visual Basic and the new C#. Over the years, C# has then become the primary language for the whole .NET platform.

So, what does it mean to learn C# today, two decades after .NET 1.0? Learning the sole syntax and semantics of a programming language makes little to no sense these days, whether it is C#, Java, or Python. A programming language is a largely interchangeable tool with limited real programming power without the backbone of a solid framework.

Subsequently, learning the plain syntax of a programming language is a small fraction of the job and a book that intends to cover any programming language has to go well beyond data types, operators, and control statements. This is precisely what this book does and in addition, in it, you will also explore the authors' well-known obsession through clear and precise topics.

This book is not simply a technical guide about using the C# language. It covers statements, data types, classes, generics, concurrency, and even functional and dynamic programming, plus the array of new features in the latest C# language. However, if you are only armed with these tools, you won't go too far even with building toy applications. It is also important for you to know about the foundational aspects of the .NET platform, such as reflection, collections, regular expressions, files, streams, serialization, and LINQ.

Anything else? You bet!

Error handling, exceptions, garbage collection, and memory management also have a reserved chapter, before ending with an overview of C#8 in the context of .NET Core 3 and unit testing.

In spite of the title, this is not simply the umpteenth book on a popular programming language. It is a book about how to use a popular programming language to its fullest for building .NET applications on a solid foundation.

Dino Esposito

Digital Strategist, Youbiquitous.net

Marius Bancila is a software engineer with almost two decades of experience in developing solutions for the industrial and financial sectors. He is the author of Modern C++ Programming Cookbook and The Modern C++ Challenge. He works as a software architect and is focused on Microsoft technologies, mainly developing desktop applications with C++ and C#, but not solely. He is passionate about sharing his technical expertise with others and, for that reason, he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for C++ and later developer technologies since 2006.

I would like to thank everybody that made this book possible. To Raffaele and Ankit for laboring on this project together and making it a great book. To Omprakash for his useful comments. To Ruvika for all her support and patience during the project. To Alok, Storm, and all the other people at Packt that helped turn this book from an idea to reality.

Raffaele Rialdi is a senior software architect working as a consultant, speaker, and trainer. Since 2003, he is a Microsoft MVP in the Developer Security category. His passion for the community leads him to be a member of the board of UGIdotNET, president of DotNetLiguria, and co-founder of the Italian C++ user group. Currently, he is working as an architect and developer on the backend of an enterprise project with a specific focus on code generation, and working on cross-platform mobile and IoT development in both C# and C++. You can find him on Twitter with the handle