Rating:  - Not for experienced programmers - very basic
I had bought this book hoping to acquire some C# skills, already having experience in Visual Basic and C++. Unfortunately, the title of this book is misleading as it covers very basic topics - stuff any experienced programmer would already know. For example, two paragraphs are wasted explaning that "files" are what programs use for long-term storage - duh!!! The level of this book is almost insulting! This book may be good for someone just learning to program, but anyone with more than a year of experience should not be fooled by the title.
Rating:  - Too much coverage; too little details
I bought this book because I used the C++ book by Deitel and Deitel 10 years ago, and I still use it for reference. That was a great book, this is just awful. Except for the first few chapters on language semantics, the book is a horrible mish-mash of Developer Studio auto-generated code, with the author partly trying to explain the auto-generated code and partly trying to explain concepts. I wanted to learn the semantics of ADO.NET. Didn't get very far, because the book wants to describe how to drag and drop controls from the ToolBox to create OleDBConnections. Then I tried taking the other approach - I sat with Developer Studio in front of me and tried following what the author was trying to explain - didn't get very far on that either - because there is no description of how to use the datagrid. You are sort of left off in the middle! The datagrid is explained very briefly in another chapter on ASPX - not helpful when you are trying to learn ADO. This is sort of true for almost every chapter in the book.
The book might have been a good one had the author stuck to one approach - raw code OR just an explanation of how to use the IDE.
I would strongly recommend against buying this book. Get the O'Reilly book by Jason Liberty - thats a really good book on language semantics that is very clean, crisp and explains the idiosyncracies of the language very nicely - with little notes on how things are different from Java and C++. Even the $10 "C# Complete" book by Sybex is a better buy than this (I have that too, and enjoyed reading it much more than this).
Rating: - Tries to cover everything but misses by a wide margin
I had my doubts when I saw this book. In my experience huge tombs like this contain more fluff then value. But on looking at the topics covered and of course the title I thought I'd give it a try. Didn't take long to realize that it was a waste of time. As my title states this book attempts to cover more than is wanted or necessary.
Rating:  - Really Good book
As a professional VB developer of 10 years I was looking for a decent book that would get me started on the .NET enviornment. I chose C# as my programming language so that I could switch between C# and Java later on if need be. This book is a good book that takes you from a refresher course in basic C(#) syntax, OO concepts and brings you into the world of .Net programming. It touches almost every aspect that someone would need to know to be an "intermediate skilled developer in C#". This book is for those who have basic programming background and want to get into C# programming with .Net. Touches ADO.Net ASP.Net, Web Services, Multithreading, Networking. The appendix ranges from A-N and covers a wide range of topics. Overall a good book and I am pleased with it.
Rating: - NOT for experienced programmers
I was looking for a Wrox Professional book, but alas, they were no more.
This book attracted me with the promise of 'no introductory material' and so I bought it.
Four chapters later I was still skimming deep stuff like 'how to save a file in the IDE' and why an IDE is a good thing.
I skipped to a chapter near the back with an interesting title, but it was not much better there.
I can't really review the whole book because I didn't read the whole thing. I had already wasted my money and too much time, so I didn't want to waste any more.
This MAY be a good book for rank beginners - plenty of introduction and exposition with a slow, deliberate pace - but if you have ever written a 'hello world' in any language then this is not the book for you.
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