There are many C# books, some, more than a thousand pages long, that aim to be comprehensive references to the C# programming language and the .NET Framework.
This book is different—it is concise and aims to be a fast-paced read that is packed with hands-on walkthroughs. I wrote this book to be the best step-by-step guide to modern cross-platform C# and .NET proven practices.
I will point out the cool corners and gotchas of C# so you can impress colleagues and employers and quickly get productive. Rather than slowing down and boring some of you by explaining every little thing, I assume that if a term I use is new to you, then you know how to Google it with a search engine such as DuckDuckGo.
At the end of each chapter, there is a section entitled Practicing and Exploring, which contains questions to test your knowledge, and usually a hands-on practical exercise, and you will explore topics in depth on your own with a little nudge in the right direction from me.
You can download solutions for the exercises from the GitHub repository at https://github.com/markjprice/cs6dotnetcore. I will provide instructions on how to do this using Visual Studio 2015 at the end of Chapter 1, Hello C#!, Welcome .NET Core!.
Chapter 1, Hello C#!, Welcome .NET Core!, is about setting up your development environment and using various tools to create the simplest application possible with C#. You will learn how to compile C# code at the Command Prompt and how to write and compile code using Visual Studio. You will also learn about the different .NET platforms: .NET Framework, .NET Core, and .NET Native.
Chapter 2, Speaking C#, is about the C# language, the grammar and vocabulary that you will use every day to write the source code for your applications. In particular, you will learn how to declare and work with variables of different types.
Chapter 3, Controlling the Flow, Converting Types, and Handling Exceptions, is about writing code that makes decisions, repeats blocks of statements, converts between types, and handles errors. You will also learn the best places to look for help.
Chapter 4, Using Common .NET Types, is about how .NET types are related to C#. You will learn about .NET Framework, .NET Core, and their class library assemblies of types that allow your applications to connect together existing components to perform common practical tasks.
Chapter 5, Using Specialized .NET Types, is about .NET types used to diagnose problems, support multiple languages and cultures, and access features and applications outside of .NET.
Chapter 6, Building Your Own Types with Object-Oriented Programming, is about all the different categories of members that a type can have, including fields for storing data and methods for performing actions. You will use OOP concepts such as aggregation and encapsulation.
Chapter 7, Implementing Interfaces and Inheriting Classes, is about deriving new types from existing ones using OOP. You will learn how to implement interfaces, about base and derived classes, how to override a type member, how to use polymorphism, and how to cast between classes in an inheritance hierarchy.
Chapter 8, Working with Relational Data Using the Entity Framework, is about reading and writing to Microsoft SQL Server (and other databases) using classic ADO.NET and the object-relational mapping technology known as Entity Framework.
Chapter 9, Querying and Manipulating Data with LINQ, is about Language Integrated Queries (LINQ)—language extensions that add the ability to work with sequences of items, and filter, sort, and project them into different outputs.
Chapter 10, Working with Files, Streams, and Serialization, is about reading and writing to files and streams, text encoding, and serialization.
Chapter 11, Protecting Your Data and Applications, is about protecting your data using encryption and hashing, and checking who is running your application and what they are allowed to do.
Chapter 12, Improving Performance and Scalability with Multitasking, is about allowing multiple actions to be executed at the same time to improve performance, scalability, and user productivity.
Chapter 13, Building Universal Windows Platform Apps Using XAML, is about learning the basics of XAML, which can be used to define the user interface for a graphical app for the Universal Windows Platform (UWP). This app can then run on Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile, Xbox One, and even HoloLens.
Chapter 14, Building Web Applications and Services Using ASP.NET Core, is about building web applications and services using a modern HTTP architecture on the server side using Microsoft ASP.NET Core 1.0. You will learn about the models, views, and controllers that make up MVC and the Web API.
Chapter 15, Taking C# Cross-Platform, is about introducing you to how you can take C# cross-platform using .NET Core, ASP.NET Core 1.0, Entity Framework Core 1.0, and Visual Studio Code.
Chapter 16, Building a Quiz, is about designing and building a quiz application that helps students learn C#, .NET Core, and related topics.
Appendix A, Answers to the Test Your Knowledge Questions, has the answers to the test questions at the end of each chapter.
Appendix B, Creating a Virtual Machine for Your Development Environment, shows how to set up a virtual machine in Microsoft Azure for use as a development environment.
Although you can develop and deploy C# on many platforms, including Mac OS X and Linux, for the best learning experience, you need two pieces of software:
Microsoft Windows 10
Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2015 with Update 1 (or later)
The best version of Windows to use is Microsoft Windows 10 because you need this version to create Universal Windows Platform apps in Chapter 13, Building Universal Windows Platform Apps Using XAML. Earlier versions of Windows, such as 7 or 8.1, will work for all other chapters. If you don't have a Windows computer, then you can use a virtual machine running Windows in the cloud. Refer to Appendix B, Creating a Virtual Machine for Your Development Environment for instructions.
The best version of Visual Studio to use is Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2015 with Update 1 (or later), which is the version I used while writing this book. In Chapter 15, Taking C# Cross-Platform, I will introduce you to Visual Studio Code, which runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, and can create cross-platform applications for all these OSes.
If you have heard that C# is a popular general-purpose, cross-platform programming language used to create everything from business applications, websites, and services to games for mobile devices, Xbox One, and the Windows 10 desktop-to-tablet-to-phone platform, then this book is for you.
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: " The code you will write will be stored in the file named Program.cs."
A block of code is set as follows:
// the best nieces and nephews in the world names[0] = "Kate"; names[1] = "Jack"; names[2] = "Rebecca"; names[3] = "Tom";
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
// the best nieces and nephews in the world
names[0] = "Kate";
names[1] = "Jack";
names[2] = "Rebecca";
names[3] = "Tom"; Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
csc my.cs /target:library
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "In Visual Studio, from the View menu, choose Other Windows, and then C# Interactive."
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