Sebastopol, CA--Two years ago, there were no C# programmers; the language didn't exist (although reports of the new language had surfaced years before it was officially announced, which Microsoft consistently denied). Regardless of their level of programming expertise, C# programmers find themselves in the same boat: learning to master a language and a new platform in quick order, without a lot of tried-and-true resources on which to depend. The new C# in a Nutshell reference from O'Reilly (US $39.95) written by Peter Drayton, Ben Albahari, and Ted Neward is designed to be the handbook these programmers will use daily and will keep next to their keyboards for years to come.
Neither a "how-to" book nor a rehash of Microsoft's documentation, this latest addition to O'Reilly's acclaimed Nutshell series goes to the source of the language and APIs to present content in a way that professional programmers will value above all other books. Says coauthor Neward, "Hordes of programmers will be migrating to this entirely new platform and an entirely new language. Just as happened with Java, programmers will want somebody to point out the new and interesting stuff, and will need careful guidance to avoid the 'gotchas' in this brave, new world."
"In the last four months two major milestones have been achieved," adds Drayton. "The .NET Framework was released to the public in February 2002, and the C# language and Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) was ratified by the General Assembly of the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) in December 2001. The combination of a newly released platform from the world's largest software manufacturer, and a newly minted international standard garnering interest from the open source community is a potent one-two punch. Developers are going to have to get to grips with this platform, now, without delay. We hope that this book will help them get up the learning curve fast."
"C# in a Nutshell" is a detailed reference to the C# language and the .NET types most essential to C# programmers. Each chapter in the API reference begins with an overview of a .NET namespace and a diagram of its types. The chapter then includes a quick-reference entry for each type, with name, assembly category, description, member availability, class hierarchy, and other relevant information, such as whether the type is part of the ECMA CLI specification.
In addition to the reference section, "C# in a Nutshell" includes an accelerated introduction to the C# language and the .NET Common Language Runtime and a tutorial section on using C# with the core classes of the .NET Framework Class Library.
"C# in a Nutshell" was written for the working C# programmer who will be able to find answers to most questions of syntax and functionality that he or she encounters on the job. Experienced Java, C++, and Visual Basic programmers encountering the C# language and the CLR for the first time can rely on this book to help them master the essentials of the language. As Drayton says, "This book is intended to help programmers be completely comfortable sitting down and whipping out a few thousand lines of C# code, taking full advantage of the classes in the .NET Framework, without spending hours poring through reams of online documentation."
Additional resources:
- Chapter 1, Introducing C# and the .NET Framework
- More information about the book, including Table of Contents, index, author bios, and samples
- A cover graphic in jpeg format
C# in a Nutshell
By Peter Drayton, Ben Albahari, and Ted Neward
ISBN 0-596-00181-9, 832 pages, $39.95 (US), $61.95 (CAN)
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