Mitja Bonca said
A book Head first is a great book for beginners in C# programming. It shows you on a simple way how to start coding. I was really surprised how easy is to learn some basics. But still, it is only for the beginning - for something more the additional books are needs AND most of all, a lot of time invested into practising.
But still, great book, as I said it is a great book got getting basic knowledge.
Mujahid Khan said
I have read and learned from Head First books before, for example H F SOL. The SQL book was so good that when I decided to learn C# , my decision was already made: it had to be a Head first book.
However, the C# head first book is riddled with errata, the organization is poor . I did not like the tacky cartoons which are just a 'filler'.
The basics of Loops, Variables and conditionals are taught in a cursory manner.
All in all reading this book can be a hair pulling experience for a newbie.
May be the experienced reader C++ can benefit, but a newbie must stay away.
Instead, I subscribed to the http://www.learnvisualstudio.net and found a treasure trove. Something I can really use and learn.
M Khan
John Craven said
If you're anything like me, you may have initially picked up this book or one of the other books in the Head First series, flipped it open, saw all the insets, pictures, and little pieces of clip art that make it look less like a book on programming and more like one of those "One Minute Manager" type tomes, and then quietly set it down and backed away. Here's the thing: you owe it to yourself to not do that. Buy this bad boy and use it!
Why does this book work? You remember a larger percentage of things when you take something that's written and then apply it directly to a project than just try to memorize it. If you've gone within 10 feet of a corporate entity in the last 15 years you've probably heard the mantra of "you learn x% by listening, x+10% by reciting, and x+30% by reciting while slapping an angry linebacker in the face" (that last one may have been made up). Even if you haven't, you can probably remember some dreary lecture-based class in college where you don't remember a darned thing and can compare and contrast with another class where you had to, say, write regular reports covering the subject matter. Most of the time, you're going to remember more from the second class than the first.
The other part of this is that for me at least when I read a big long book on a programming language I'll get a couple hundred pages in, get the idea that I know understand the language well enough to tinker around in it, and then discover that in fact I know nothing about it and need to re-read everything. Having the nearly constant programming, problem-solving, and even crossword puzzles at hand means you're constantly testing your knowledge, meaning in turn that if you don't get something you only have to backtrack 10 or 15 pages rather than half the book.
From what I gather, earlier editions of this book were not well edited, which is really too bad. This is too solid a format for learning to allow it to be dismissed because of sloppiness. All I can say is, it's better now.
Kevin Sikes said
I love the concept and layout of this book, but I simply can't recommend it. It is literally full of errors. I knew I'd be in for a rough ride as early as page 26 when the text claimed that Visual Studio requires your database to have a diagram in order to access the data. That is a howler of a technical error that should have been caught by a first draft edit! In fact, it was not corrected until the FOURTH PRINTING (See http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514822/errata/9780596514822.0908) I stopped reading the book at chapter 5, where the text informed the confused reader that using the "this" keyword before a property name in a constructor caused the public set accessor to be called, and omitting "this" caused the private set accessor to be called. Who checks this stuff?
While I give O'Reilly props for publishing errata and corrections online (earning them 2 stars instead of 1 in this review), I can't sit down with the book, plus 4 sets of errata, plus a re-published PDF of chapter 5, and enjoy the experience.
William Sommerwerck said
I so badly want to give "Head First C#" five stars -- this is the way technical books /should/ be written -- but after having worked through a few chapters, I can't.
As a technical writer, I detest dull books that fail to engage the reader. Stellman and Greene's approach, loaded with Alice-friendly pictures and conversations, is a great way to keep the reader interested and involved. *
Unfortunately, the execution falls well-short of the goal.
The fundamental problem is that "Head First C#" assumes the reader knows little or nothing about programming. This is /not/ the audience for a C# book, because C# is a relatively new language, and beginning programmers rarely start with it. Those learning C# are usually programmers having experience with C++, Java, or some other object-oriented language. They're likely to be distracted reading about things they already know.
A book cannot simultaneously "focus" on two audiences. "Head First C#" should have ignored the newbies and aimed at programmers moving to C#.
One does not expect absolute perfection, but some of the explanations are poor, such as what, exactly, static functions and variables are, and why they're needed. As for delegation -- I haven't found /any/ book that explains it in the detail needed (not to mention that each writer has his or her own take on how and when it should be used). Delegation should be covered in full in its own chapter.
"Head First C#" is one of the most-poorly edited technical books I've seen. ** Not only are there garbled sentences even a perfunctory edit would have caught, but there are inconsistencies in the code, which can be thoroughly confusing even to experienced programmers. Indeed, the bad editing started with the acquisitions editor, who should have forced the writers to focus on the book's most-likely audience.
If only for its worked-through program examples, "Head First C#" is worthwhile. But buyers should be warned that, though it's in its fourth printing, with many errors corrected, you can still wind up (as I did) with a copy of the first printing, purchased in 9/2008. (The O'Reilley site has a list of the corrections, but it's a lot of work to enter them yourself.)
"Head First C#" /could/ be a truly great book, but it needs a thorough rethinking and reorganization. It is, perhaps, the supreme example of all the things wrong with the technical-book industry. But O'Reilley doesn't understand, and probably doesn't care.
* It isn't the only way, of course. Really good writing -- see Charles Petzold -- is the starting point. If the writing is good enough, you don't need many pictures.
** Novels can be poorly edited, as well. I can give examples.
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