Books

Book Review: Async in C# 5.0

By jonskeet

Resources: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Play Books The book’s web site (O’Reilly) – downloads, errata etc A while ago I was attending one of the Developer, Developer, Developer conference in Reading, and I heard Alex Davies give a talk about actors and async. He mentioned that he was in the process of writing a short book for O’Reilly about async in C# 5, and I offered to review it for him. Many months later (sorry Alex!) I’m finally getting round to it. Disclaimer: The review copy was given to me for free, and equally the book is arguably a competitor … Continue reading Book Review: Async in C# 5.0

C# in Depth 3rd edition available for early access, plus a discount code…

By jonskeet

Readers who follow me on Twitter or Google+ know this already, but… The third edition of C# in Depth is now available for early access from its page on the Manning website. I’ve been given a special discount code which expires at midnight EST on February 17th, so be quick if you want to use it – it gives 50% off either version. The code is “csharpsk”. It’s likely that we’ll have a separate (permanent) discount for readers who already own the second edition, but the details of that haven’t been decided yet. Just to be clear, the third edition … Continue reading C# in Depth 3rd edition available for early access, plus a discount code…

The future of "C# in Depth"

By jonskeet

I’m getting fairly frequent questions – mostly on Twitter – about whether there’s going to be a third edition of C# in Depth. I figure it’s worth answering it once in some detail rather than repeatedly in 140 characters 😉 I’m currently writing a couple of new chapters covering the new features in C# 5 – primarily async, of course. The current "plan" is that these will be added to the existing 2nd edition to create a 3rd edition. There will be minimal changes to the existing text of the 2nd edition – basically going over the errata and editing … Continue reading The future of "C# in Depth"

Edulinq – the e-book

By jonskeet

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve made a first pass at converting the blog posts in the Edulinq series into e-books. I’m using Calibre to convert to PDF and e-book format. I still have a way to go, but they’re at least readable. The Kindle version (MOBI format) is working somewhat better than the PDF version at the moment, which surprises me. In particular, although hyperlinks are displaying in the PDF, they don’t seem to be working – whereas at least the internal links in the Kindle format are working. I’ll no doubt try to improve things over time, but … Continue reading Edulinq – the e-book

C# in Depth 2nd edition: now available in mobi/epub (Kindle) format

By jonskeet

I’m not quite sure why this hasn’t been emailed to all existing owners, but the ebook of C# in Depth 2nd edition is now available in mobi and epub form, as well as PDF. You can download it from the Manning user account site. You need to have the existing ebook first, but if you have the hard copy there should be a voucher in the front which will let you get the ebook for free. (This should work wherever you bought the hard copy from; it doesn’t matter whether you originally ordered it from Manning or not.) If you … Continue reading C# in Depth 2nd edition: now available in mobi/epub (Kindle) format

C# in Depth 2nd edition: ebook available, but soon to be updated

By jonskeet

Just a quick interrupt while I know many of you are awaiting more asynchronous fun… Over the weekend, the ebook of C# in Depth 2nd edition went out – and a mistake was soon spotted. Figure 2.2 was accidentally replaced by figure 13.1. I’ve included it in the book’s errata but we’re hoping to issue another version of the ebook shortly. Fortunately this issue only affects the ebook version – the files shipped to the printer are correct. Speaking of which, I believe the book should come off the printing press some time this week, so it really won’t be … Continue reading C# in Depth 2nd edition: ebook available, but soon to be updated

Book Review: Effective C# (2nd edition) by Bill Wagner

By jonskeet

Resources: Amazon, Barnes and Noble Bill Wagner’s blog Disclaimer Just in case you’re unaware, I’m the author of another C# book, C# in Depth. Although Effective C# is somewhat different to my book, they certainly share a target audience. To that extent, Bill and I are competitors. I try hard to stay unbiased in reviews, but it’s probably impossible. Bear this in mind while reading. I should also note that I didn’t buy my copy of Effective C#; it was kindly sent to me by Pearson, for the purpose of reviewing. Content and target audience Effective C# is a style … Continue reading Book Review: Effective C# (2nd edition) by Bill Wagner

You are all individuals! (I’m not…)

By jonskeet

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while, but recently a couple of events have coincided, reminding me about the issue. First, Joe Duffy blogged in defence of premature optimization. Second, I started reading Bill Wagner’s Effective C#, 2nd edition, which contains advice such as "make almost all your types serializable". Now, let’s be clear: I have a great deal of respect for both of these gentlemen… but in both cases I think there’s a problem: to some extent they’re assuming a certain type of development. In some cases, you really, really want to understand the nuts and bolts … Continue reading You are all individuals! (I’m not…)

Degrees of reality in sample code

By jonskeet

Yesterday I tweeted a link to an article about overloading that I’d just finished. In that article, all my examples look a bit like this: using System; class Test {     static void Foo(int x, int y = 5)     {         Console.WriteLine("Foo(int x, int y = 5)");     }          static void Foo(double x)     {         Console.WriteLine("Foo(double x)");     }     static void Main()     {         Foo(10);     } } Each example is followed by an explanation of the output. Fairly soon afterwards, I received an email from a reader who disagreed with my choices for sample code. ere … Continue reading Degrees of reality in sample code

How many Jedi?

By jonskeet

(There’s no technical content in this post… but you may get a bit of a giggle from it. When I get the second edition web site notes together I’ll include this as well… but I thought it was fun enough to deserve a blog post too.) The second edition of C# in Depth is nearing the end of its technical review cycle, as performed by the great Eric Lippert. Yesterday I received the comments for chapter 13, which includes this section heading: The revenge of optional parameters and named arguments Now, my copy editor (Ben) wasn’t too keen on this. … Continue reading How many Jedi?