Rating:  - How Good It Is Depends on Where You Are Coming From
This was the very first book that I picked up on C#, while I was using Beta 2 of the .NET Framework. I come from an ASP/VBScript and Visual Basic 6.0 background. Since my focus with C# was ASP.NET programming, it was less useful to me than a beginning C# book that would have focused on ASP.NET programming (Such as Wrox's beginning ASP.NET using C#) but of course, this book makes no such warranty.
It's goal is to teach you the C# language, and on that count it works very well. But be warned, the lessons go very slowly until about Chapter 9.
I think there would be a market for a book such as "Teach Yourself C# in 21 Days -- For VB Programmers" that could move faster (you used to do loops this way in VB, here's how to do it in C#.)
You will probably be less than thrilled writing console applications as the book has you do, but I don't think one could come up with a better way to teach you C# from the ground up, without requiring the explicit use of Visual Studio.NET.
Rating:  - Not a good choice for the beginner or returning programmer.
I decide to return to programming after a long absence. I think I made a really poor choice in this book. For me, it just didn't do the job. I had to get another book on C# to fully understand what was being said in this book. I really wish I would have just bought the other one in the first place. Some of the exercises ask you to do things that are never fully explained in the book. In addition, it only gives a brief explanation of classes, and that is the one thing I needed the most information on. All in all, not a great book for someone who has never programmed in an object oriented language. I guess if you have intermediate programming skills, you may be able to finish this book in 21 days, but it's simply not a good choice for those who are returning to programming after a long absence or for those who are a beginner.
Rating:  - best programming/language intro!!
I'm new to programming and decided to start with C#, this book has made made the process incredibly easy. Everything is reinforced, the author is concise and the book is well organized. The author always seems to anticipate my questions and answer them before I have a chance to ask, great!! I've seen some comments on the lack of Visual Studio coverage, to me that would have been distracting since I'm trying to learn to program, not use a tool. Thank you Sams!
Rating:  - If you are using a command-line compiler
Then this book may be a 4 or 5 star intro. I have done little to no programming, and am trying to learn with Visual Studio.NET, which made the first couple of chapters a nightmare- until I sat down in a bookstore and read the first two chapters of the Dummies book on C#, which told me what I needed to know about how to use the Visual Studio environment.
Just a qualifying remark for people who are planning on learning C# as their first language using Visual Studio- look into one of the other books. Already know how to use VS? Maybe this book is for you. :-)
Rating: - A solid, quick tutorial on how the basics are done in C#
A long-term corporate client recently requested a class in C#, as they have an interest in learning about the language but are not yet ready to adopt it for development. To prepare for the class, my first action was to read this book. As I worked through some of the more interesting exercises, I was struck with how easy they were. Very few are more than two pages and all were easy to understand. As I closed the book, I was pleased with my knowledge of the language.
As I went on to write the material for the class and began creating the exercises that I would use in the training, there was no difficulty as I was well-versed in most of the syntactic differences that C# has with C++ and Java. Since I have a set of standard exercises that I use in my other programming courses, this made it very easy for me to build the lessons.
The exercises are also well-suited for anyone with a minimal programming background. Even someone with little experience can work through them if they possess the determination to do so. I recommended it to my students as a book that they could use to fill in the details that it was necessary for me to leave out.
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