Mike Murach & Associates
1 edition
March 2008
800 pages
Reviewed by Jeanne Boyarsky, May 2008
(9 of 10)
"Murach's C# 2008" follows the Murach style where there are two books in one. The even numbered pages contain text. The odd numbered pages contain related diagrams, tables and bulleted lists.
The book targets beginners to experienced developers in Java/C++/VB/.NET along with being useful for training and reference. I'm a little skeptical when a book tries to be all things to all people, but the author does a great job with this. The "paired page" format really helps with this because you can read the most appropriate one (or both) for you at the time. I'm a Java developer. While I was able to skim some sections, I was never bored.
I particularly liked the focus on idioms and skills. There were a lot of "how to do ________" examples along with techniques such as refactoring. The end of chapter exercises were also great.
The book also walks you through features in Visual Studio 08. I like how the author highlights differences between the professional and express editions. The chapter on using the debugger was excellent.
There were only two minor things I didn't like. First, there was one significant difference from Java that was in the text section and I almost missed it skimming. The other was that sometimes the text would continue after turning the page which made it harder to follow the paired pages. I'm impressed that these are the worst things I can write. I recommend the format.
(9 of 10)
