Rating:  - Best book I've read!
I'm developer form years. I'm just starting C# programming and I've bought many books about C# and .NET. One of them are too easy (and not enough detailed for me), rest assumed that people know .NET.
This book is different.
It is really good developers guide as well as novice or advanced developer.
Describes everything in detail, including many pictures. I like code presentation style - it is not many pages code listed in book - it shows only most important part of code.
Information presented in book is very realistic - I'm sure every developer can find there answers in most cases.
I must also say about text style of book - it's written like a good story - so reading it is big pleasure!
If you are interested in Windows Form Programming in C#, using VS .NET - do not thing too long - just buy this book - you will not regret this!
Good work Chris!
Rating:  - in general, a pretty good book
In general, this is a pretty good book. Chris Sells does a decent job of giving the reader an introduction to WinForms programming. The first 110 pages are truly excellent reading.
As the book progresses, however, one gets the impression that Chris is trying to jam a few too many topics into this book. Yes, WinForms is vast, and certain topics get glossed over, and the excellent flow established within the first hundred or two pages doesn't appear consistently throughout the rest of the text. I would have preferred fewer topics in more depth, and more conceptual coverage.
I got the impression that this book might have done better as a two volume set, the first with more of a conceptual hands-on coverage of WinForms with practical examples, and the second volume offering more of a reference of available Windows Forms controls and components, with plenty of references to Microsoft documentation.
So I'm giving it 4 stars. It's a very good book overall, but I can't say that it is far superior than a comparable O'Reilly/Jesse Liberty book (maybe just a bit better? maybe not?)
Rather than focus too obsessively on finding the perfect introductory .NET WinForms book, I recommend buying this or a comparable O'Reilly book without much online research, and spending more effort in your search for an intermediate->advanced .NET programming book(s). I do think that "Programming .NET Components" by Juval Lowy (O'Reilly) is just such a book, and would be worth taking a look at.
WinForms is the main starting point for .NET programming and you can expect the major publishers and authors to cover this topic well enough for you to get up to speed. Most of work required to get up to speed with WinForms involves you playing around on your own with Visual Studio .NET with the help of one of these WinForms books.
Rating: - Nice Job Chris
Chris Sells and Justin Gehtland (VB.NET version) have done a nice job introducing us to WinForms development in .NET. I must admit, I have not read the entire book. I purchased the book mainly for it's discussion on No Touch Deployment, Data Validation and Data Binding.
The book taught me quite a bit on NTD and has saved me a lot of headaches and research time. In addition, Chris's tips on NTD performance defintely increased the performance of our application.
This book is a definite read for someone new to WinForms development, or for someone whose been working with it for a while and needs a reference. I find myself turning to the book at least 1-2x a week.
Rating: - Wished I had this book a year ago!
I really enjoyed the book and found it quite useful. Wish I would have had it a year ago when I started working with C# forms. Did not take long to realize even my "OK", "Cancel" forms could stand a *bit* of improvement. I liked the humor - helps with otherwise dry reading. Section on multi-threading was great. This should be your first book on programming Windows forms in C#.
Rating: - A Book For Writing Real World Windows Forms Applications
For any given topic there is a book or two that are a must have and Chris Sells' book falls in this category. The book covers all the key topics to building a serious production Windows Forms application including Localization, Drawing, Printing, & Multi-threading. Of all the books about this topic it covered more advanced topics than the others, particularly in using GDI+ to create customized user interface elements. I liked the book so much I accidentally bought it twice!
|
