C# in Depth is a completely new book designed to propel existing C# developers to a higher level of programming skill. One simple principle drives this book: explore a few things deeply rather than offer a shallow view of the whole C# landscape. If you often find yourself wanting just a little more at the end of a typical chapter, this is the book for you.

Expert author Jon Skeet dives into the C# language, plumbing new C# 2 and 3 features and probing the core C# language concepts that drive them. This unique book puts the new features into context of how C# has evolved without a lengthy rehearsal of the full C# language.

C# in Depth briefly examines the history of C# and the .NET framework and reviews a few often-misunderstood C# 1 concepts that are very important as the foundation for fully exploiting C# 2 and 3. Because the book addresses C# 1 with a light touch, existing C# developers don't need to pick through the book in order to find new material to enhance their skills.

This book focuses on the C# 2 and 3 versions of the language, but clearly explains where features are supported by changes in the runtime (CLR) or use new framework classes. Each feature gets a thorough explanation, along with a look on how you'd use it in real life applications.

This book addresses the fundamental units of Windows and .NET programming - threads. A strong understanding of the role threads play in program execution, how multiple threads can interact in order to make efficient programs, and the pitfalls to beware of when developing multithreaded applications, are all core to a developer's ability to develop effective C# programs. This book will cover how .NET applications are executed, the life cycle of a thread in .NET, how the .NET Framework uses threads, how threads work in an event-driven environment, how we can avoid race conditions and deadlocks, how the activity of multiple threads can be synchronized, and how to debug multithreaded applications. We finish it off by describing the creation of a multithreaded network application.

A Developer's Notebook is just what it claims to be: the often-frantic scribbling and notes that a true-blue alpha geek mentally makes when working with a new language, API, or project. It's the no-nonsense code that solves problems, stripped of page-filling commentary that often serves more as a paperweight than an epiphany. It's hackery, focused not on what is nifty or might be fun to do when you've got some free time (when's the last time that happened?), but on what you need to simply "make it work." This isn't a lecture, folksit's a lab. If you want a lot of concept, architecture, and UML diagrams, I'll happily and proudly point you to our animal and nutshell books.

If you want every answer to every problem under the sun, our omnibus cookbooks are killer. And if you are into arcane and often quirky uses of technology, hacks books simply rock. But if you're a coder, down to your core, and you just want to get on with it, then you want a Developer's Notebook. Coffee stains and all, this is from the mind of a developer to yours, barely even cleaned up enough for print. I hope you enjoy it…we sure had a good time writing them.

This book is written for programmers who are already familiar with previous version of C# (C# 1.0 or 1.1) and who have used a previous version of Visual Studio .NET (either 2002 or 2003) to build Windows (Windows Forms) or web-based (ASP.NET) applications. My aim is to introduce you, through a series of hands-on labs, to the new features of the C# 2.0 language, the .NET 2.0 Framework, and the Visual Studio 2005 developer environment.

C# programmers: no more translating data structures from C++ or Java to use in your programs! Mike McMillan provides a tutorial on how to use data structures and algorithms plus the first comprehensive reference for C# implementation of data structures and algorithms found in the .NET Framework library, as well as those developed by the programmer.

The approach is very practical, using timing tests rather than Big O notation to analyze the efficiency of an approach. Coverage includes array and ArrayLists, linked lists, hash tables, dictionaries, trees, graphs, and sorting and searching algorithms, as well as more advanced algorithms such as probabilistic algorithms and dynamic programming. This is the perfect resource for C# professionals and students alike.

This book is written primarily as a practical overview of the data structures and algorithms all serious computer programmers need to know and understand. Given this, there is no formal analysis of the data structures and algorithms covered in the book. Hence, there is not a single mathematical formula and not one mention of Big Oh analysis (if you don’t know what this means, look at any of the books mentioned in the bibliography). Instead, the various data structures and algorithms are presented as problem-solving tools. Simple timing tests are used to compare the performance of the data structures and algorithms discussed in the book.

The only prerequisite for this book is that the reader have some familiarity with the C# language in general, and object-oriented programming in C# in particular.

This book is a tutorial, both on C# and on writing .NET applications with C#. If you are a proficient C# 1.1 programmer, and all you want to know is what is new in C# 2.0, put this book down, and buy Visual C# 2005: A Developer's Notebook (O'Reilly Media, Inc.). If, on the other hand, you want to brush up on your C# skills, or you are proficient in another programming language like C++ or Java, or even if this is your first programming language, then this book is for you.

Programming C#, Fourth Edition, was written for programmers who want to develop applications for the .NET platform. No doubt many of you already have experience in C++, Java, or Visual Basic (VB). Other readers may have experience with other programming languages, and some readers may have no specific programming experience but perhaps have been working with HTML and other web technologies. This book is written for all of you, though if you have no programming experience at all, you may find some of it tough going.

If you're migrating from C, C++, VB 6, or Java, the following sections should give you some basic comparisons with C#. More importantly, keep an eye out for notes specifically for you throughout the book.