Each and Every Chapter Contains Tons and Tons On Knowledge.

I've been a self-taught programmer for the last 5+ years and have read/skimmed countless programming books in my time. I'm well-versed in several languages and recently decided to become more proficient with C# as well as getting caught up to "modern" C# (I learned C# when it was version 7).Mark Price's book is nothing short of a god-send for me. This has been one of the best programming books I've ever read and most certainly the best for the language. While this may not be great for the absolute newbie programmer (it's a very concise book), anyone with a little bit of skill in any language should find themselves right at home. Mark does a wonderful job completely covering not only the fundamentals of the language but also diving into practical applications along with website development and services like ASP.NET, EF Core and more!If you've ever wanted to learn C# (or just programming in general), this is the book I would point anyone to. Mark is an expert in the field and the Discord server for the book has been its own treat with very welcoming and friendly programmers to assist / discuss topics in the book. After finishing this book, you will have all the knowledge you need to develop your own websites and applications with the cross-platform nature that modern C# .NET affords. Get up to speed with the newest C# language features and become confident in your abilities with this book!Note that there is a follow-up book to this one, Apps and Services with .NET 7. I HIGHLY recommend buying the two as a set as the follow-up book directly builds off of what was learned in the 'first book' and includes a recipe-book-like approach to various real-world projects.

I liked the option of getting a PDF version of the book. I liked how rationally layed out the content is and how very complete it is. A really great job!

The book is exceptional in that it concentrates on the language and not the IDE. The examples and projects in the first 11 chapters are written as Console applications! This gives the author great flexibility to concentrate on language without concern for UI elements. The vast majority of C# texts out there are either Language References or Windows Form guides, not this one. It is very pragmatically focused. The author starts by giving the reader instructions on installing VS2022 for Windows (works for VS2019 and VS for Mac) as well, VS Code which works on Windows, Linux, Mac, and the SDKs, which also work on Windows, Mac, and Linux. He then delves into how to create multiple projects with the tools. In addition, he walks the user through installing and using .NET Interactive Notebooks (now Polyglot Notebooks) which are basically Jupyter for C# in VS Code - amazing first chapter. With this foundation, the reader is poised to jump into C# and .NET, from C# 8 and.NET Core 3.1 to C# 11 and .NET 7 using nothing more than a command line and text editor, should the reader desire to code that way.After the introductory setup chapter, the author jumps into the language for the next 10 chapters. The last 6 chapters cover the basics of web apps and services... just enough to create working applications and services. The author covers these topics in much greater detail in his other book "Apps and Services with .NET" which, if I have the opportunity to read soon, I very much look forward to.Are there weaknesses? Hmm... sure, but I consider most of what I perceive as weaknesses to be design choices and chalk them up to the author's preferences and style. This is the seventh edition of the text and the author has paid attention to the details.One thing that's noticeable and much appreciated by me is that the author leverages new features of the language expertly and adroitly while calling out there use. This is substantially different from those authors who cut new editions with little effort to embrace what's new.Great book and very helpful approach for readers wanting to learn HOW to program in C# on their ACTUAL computers!

The material covered was thorough and concise. The examples were good, code was clean and illustrated the topic clearly. Chapters were organized well and in a good sequence to advance the narrative in a logical way. This is a great book to learn from and I highly recommend it for both beginners and seasoned professionals to have around as reference material. It will certainly remain in my library for some time to come.