This is an excellent book on C#. I use it as a reference all the time for my ASP.NET dev. It's almost as big as the Learning C# book by the same author.

This was the first book on learning C# 2.0, and while at first I enjoyed the book, when the author started discussing more advanced topics like delegates and events, his examples, I felt, were overly complicated and often left me agitated trying to figure out why he programmed the examples the way he did. After reading other C# 2.0 books, I realized just how bloated the author's examples were. Anyone interested in a beginner C# 2.0 book should try Herbert Schildt's book, The Complete C# 2.0 Reference. His examples are concise, performing as much as necessary to convey the topic Mr. Schildt is currently discussing.

I felt it necessary to write this review after encountering many instances online and in print of people suggesting this title, and my adivce to someone about to purchase this book is to shop around. There are better alternatives than this mediocre book. I especially encourage you to look at Schildt's book if you are new to C#. Charles Petzold even has a free C# 2.0 book (pfd) on his website that does a decent job explaining the .NET framework.

This is a tough book to review because it addresses very remedial concepts in the C# language, as if being directed at new comers to the language, but the authors address these topics at a very high level, as if conversing with computer scientists. I believe this book will only appeal to the type of newcomer who's willing to wade thru the murky waters of remedial language theory; one who's not anxious to plunge into the deep end of quickly writing your own programs.
I am a business owner who programs fairly in depth VBA programs for use in my own company, mostly in MS Access. I've studied Python and programmed some console applications, as well as remedial programs in wxPython. I have some anecdotal knowledge of ASP.net, Actionscript and some other tools. My goal is to write my Access applications with a more robust toolset (enter C#). So I'm plagued with an ambivolence of wanting to learn from the ground up but finding overly remedial or theoretical examples mind-numbing and inapplicable.
I think this book falls into that category: too theoretical and remedial, even for newbies. I'm striking immediate paydirt with the O'Rielly book C# 3.0 in a Nutshell by Albahari. This book is also based on the newer version of C#. Albahari's book is very dense and terse, which for me is good--it doesn't dwell on concepts but gives you strictly the meat and bone with a spartan example. Allowing you to immediately grasp the fact and move on. Liberty's book (C#2005) dwells on and on with a topic and frequently spends a great deal of energy on topics of very low importance--Arrays are given an entire chapter (though not addressed until Chapter 10, half way thru the book). Yet arrays are, even by the authors' admission, the "least flexible of the five standard collection" objects. But the other 4 get short shrift in the 14th chapter on Generics.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good book. I'm just not sure how to use it, since I'm not going to get a CS degree and I will never write a console application (which is virtually the only kind in this book). I couldn't easily understand the examples given for class inheritance, though I came to the book with a clear understanding of it. On the other hand, the Albahari book had clear and concise examples by page 14.
Again, I'm not trying to knock the Liberty book. Only trying to give my experience of it, for those who might describe their programming experience or focus as I do: I'm not truly a newbie; I undertand OOPs and have some skill with other, albeit simpler, languages; I want to program specific applications now; I have a limited tolerance for long theoretical explorations on the language. If you're like me, you might find more lean-meat in C# 3.0 in a Nutshell by Albahari.

I've been programming computers for 30+ years and have migrated across several languages and systems as times dictated. I have accumulated courses, degrees, jobs, projects, and rows of books along the way. My most recent focus has been Perl on FreeBSD and Apache/CGI/mod_perl. I now have the need to write Windows GUI applications. Unfortunately, Microsoft has not chosen to make Perl a first-class language on their platform, so I am left with few choices (I am most familiar with ActiveState Perl and Cygwin). Given the fact that Visual C# 2005 EE is a free download, I've decided to climb two more learning curves -- C# and .NET.

When learning Perl, I found O'Reilly's "Learning Perl" and "Programming Perl" books to be awesome. So, I bought the C# parallels, hoping for a similar experience. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.

The content of "Learning C#" is basically a subset of "Programming C#" by Jesse Liberty with advanced topics removed. Both are what I would call language survey/ "gee whiz" books -- they describe the "what" and/or "how", but often leave out the "why". I forced my way through both and may use "Programming C#" as a reference, but "Learning C#" will only collect dust.

This book also fails its presumed purpose -- teaching the reader how to write good programs in C# at a basic to intermediate level. Mr. Liberty is clearly an intelligent person and a capable programmer, but, unfortunately, he and/or Mr. MacDonald are not good teachers (or, at least not for how my brain is wired).

Both books suffer from a deeper criticism that seems to plague almost all Microsoft subject books. I cut my teeth on Kernighan, Richie, Pike, Rochkind, Plauger, Bach, McKusick, Wall, Schwarz, Christiansen, etc., and those are the standards by which I judge all others. The writing style and technical accuracy of those authors are levels above what I find from most Microsoft subject authors. My guess is that the C/Unix and Perl authors train to higher standards (e.g. Ph.D, post doctorate), their vocations require them to write to higher standards (e.g. academic and professional journals, peer review), and they have experience in education. In Mr. Liberty's defense, those authors are not subject to scope and speed of the Microsoft product treadmill.

Given the lack of a good technical bookstore in my area, I am relegated to reading reviews such as this on the Internet, ordering a book sight unseen, and hoping for the best. Please post your reviews so we can help each other. :-)

The author's approach to explaining the C# 2.0 .NET 2005 technology is so versatile that both experienced and novice programmers alike will almost certainly appreciate this definitive guide. Please note that this textbook DOES NOT focus on graphical user interfaces (GUIs), but rather on proper programming techniques, unique C# features, and patterns. To integrate the learning of C# with GUI based applications, you may want to consider a textbook from Addison-Wesley Professional's Microsoft .NET Development Series (i.e. Framework Design Guidelines). If you are completely new to C# you need to know that this language is specifically designed for the development of Internet based and .NET Framework based applications. Any programming project outside of this scope may be better solved by using either C/C++ or JAVA. For anyone only looking for just one textbook to learn both the C# language and GUI design may find one of my other faverate textbooks more appropriate: Apress' ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005 (beginner), Apress' Pro ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005 (advanced), Apress' Pro .NET 2.0 Windows Forms and Custom Controls in C# (advanced); Addison-Wesley Professional's Windows Forms Programming in C# (advanced); O'Reilly's Building .NET Applications with C# (intermediate).