The C# Player's Guide

by R.B. Whitaker

The book in your hands is a different kind of programming book . Like an entertaining video game, programming is an often challenging but always rewarding experience. This book shakes off the dusty, dull, dryness of the typical programming book, replacing it with something more exciting and a bit of humor, a casual tone, and examples involving dragons and asteroids instead of bank accounts and employees. And since you learn to program by doing instead of just reading, this book contains over 100 hands-on programming challenges . You will be building software instead of just reading about it. By completing the challenges, you’ll earn experience points, level up, and become a True C# Programmer! This book covers the C# language from the ground up. It doesn’t assume you’ve been programming for years, but it also doesn’t hold back on exciting, powerful language features. With this book as your companion, you will soon be off to save the world (or take it over) with your own C# programs!

The 5th Edition is updated for C# 10, .NET 6, and Visual Studio 2022.

Genres: Programming, Computer Science, Nonfiction, Coding, Reference, Computers, Software

368 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 2012

Reviews

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very clear and simple explanation of some of the more difficult concepts in programming and a good introduction to the C# language.
The only thing that this book needed is a good editor.

[Matija · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is very hard to explain for who is this book exactly. It isn't quite a refference because it's is too small, for a good reference I would recommend "c# in a nutshell". On the other hand it isn't for beginners either because someway on the middle point of the book the quality of the content starts to decline rapidly. For example the chapter about "Interfaces" is by far the worse one if you would ask me. The chapter is so tiny and lacking in examples and good explanation. If you search online for the same topic you will stumble upon videos with a length of 30 minutes trying to explain the concept of Interfaces while the author just explains the briefly as like you are supposed to know everything yourself.


Conclusion : If you are serious about learning c# get some other book because this one isn't detailed enough. Maybe buy this if you want a brief overview of the language.

[Qun Li · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good at illustrating the language in an intuitive and interesting way. The only reason I didn't give it a 5 star rating is that it has way too many grammatical mistakes!

[shinnosuke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overall a very good book. It contains everything you need to get started with C#. I wish there were similar books for every programming language, as it makes learning much more enjoyable. I don't expect to finish this book soon, though. I was initially looking for a C++ replacement when I started reading it. I thought C# might be what I needed, but eventually explored several languages (OCaml, Common Lisp, Haskell, F# and Gleam) before settling on Rust, which met my requirements. That said, this is definitely the book I'll return to if I ever need to learn C# again.

Just to say a few more words about my initial impression on the language:
(a) great ecosystem,
(b) not particularly fast,
(c) simple C-like syntax (not as consistent as Rust's),
(d) better with Visual Studio and a lot of things make more sense on Windows (at least for beginners),
(e) (seem to) encourage a littered file structure

[Zack Frankel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is ideal for those who are new to C#. It offers a high-level overview of key concepts, making it accessible for beginners to build a foundational understanding of the language. The author includes small exercises at the end of each chapter, which help reinforce the material and encourage hands-on learning.

One of the book’s strengths is its clear explanations of core topics such as polymorphism, different types of loops, inheritance, and interfaces. These sections are especially well-presented and contribute significantly to the reader’s grasp of essential programming principles.

Overall, a solid introduction to C# and a great starting point for anyone beginning their journey in software engineering. Highly recommended for newcomers.

[Dustin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I haven't read it, I'd recommend the new Fourth Edition of this book. I was enjoying this book up until about the halfway point. I feel like I ran into a wall and wasn't on pace to continue (even though I'd been successfully completing the quizzes/tasks up to that point).

I really enjoyed the author's style of writing. Not too 'joke-y' and not too dry... it struck a nice balance. As others have said, this isn't a deep dive into programming but is enough to get you started and provide a solid foundation (provided you are able to keep pace).

[awwsalah · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting if it's the only C# book's you got but when you start reading c# 6.0 nutshell, you would realize he skipped lot of lot must learn information , but if you don't want to dig deep little bit of the language Core than it's must-read for you, or you just want to make video game's and don't know where to start this is for UNITY Game Developers.

[Luka Kawashima]

If nothing else it is extremely readable. I'm hardly an authority on the language but seemed like a good brief overview. Probably best suited for game developers that don't need as much in-depth information.

[Tung Vu · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's ok for a beginner.

[Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very clear explanations and examples on using C# in practical situations. The writing style is light and easy. Highly recommended.

[Lucas Ojeda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book with great original and useful exercises to learn the language, recommended for beginners/intermediate.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful for new developers when getting started with c#

[SD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome.

[Arashi256 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good well-explained book on the fundamentals of C#. Covers pretty much every facet of the language you could need really. Probably overkill for my Unity3D development, but hey :) Recommended.