This is unlike any other C# book I've come across, I wish it would have been the first one I'd bought when diving into programming for the first time. They've managed to make learning a programming language fun (a tall order). Everything is spelled out for the beginning programmer. There are plenty of pictures, notes, exercises, etc. to help you grasp what can be some pretty confusing concepts, especially if you're encountering them for the first time. It's also the only beginner's C# book I've seen that doesn't start you out writing console applications. In fact, you never write a single console app. Great book.

I've been programming in C and C++ for a little over 3 years, but decided to look in the direction of C#/XNA for game programming. I picked up this book to learn about C# before diving into the XNA framework and it has helped tremendously. Not only am I learning C#, but I'm learning it in a context that is fun and exciting. Many of the examples in the book are based around games. It doesn't get much better than this.

Background:
After getting a degree in engineering and landing a job finance, I was tasked with writing an extensive analysis program in C#. Eventually I hobbled through the first draft and many many updates using dry, technical reference books and online searches. Recently, I decided to increase the breadth of knowledge to take on other programming projects of my own choosing.

Approach:
Head First C# matched up perefctly with my expectations. The book does not assume much prior knowledge, so someone, like me, with no background in computer science can work through it without much (if any) additional reference. However, unlike other (frustrating) programming books for beginners, it goes right into practical applications, setting itself apart. Despite not neccessarily going from simple to complex in subject matter, each chapter does build nicely on those before it. I would easily recommend this as a primer to C#, or for those like me, who need to expand their practical knowledge.

Style:
In the introduction, the book explains how its style is meant to capture and hold your attention so you actually absorb the material. I appreciated the informal writing style and creative use of fonts, but the gems here are the sections where you are given basic program outlines, some code fragments and asked to complete the program (with a healthy degree of freedom). Some reviewers complain about the amount of errors in the book. Maybe I'm not as attentive to detail, but while you will find some errors, none of them interfered with my progression through the book.

Content:
In addition to this book, you will probably want a reference book or two. Of course, it would take at least a couple dozen books to cover EVERYTHING you can do in C#. Now that I've read this book, though, I at least have a good idea what other books would be useful for me. With some of what I learned from Head First C#, I've created video games, card games and database applications. The variety of topics covered and demonstration of their application makes this a valuable read.

This book is absolutely incredible. This was my "switch from VB to C#" book. After reading this entire book I feel and think like a professional C# developer, a true object oriented programer. So what it has a few typos or even sections of slight confusion. But the way this book is written teaches you how to think outside the box, not provide you with a quick Copy-Paste code example to use in your app.

Because of this book and my implementations, I've increased my salary substantially (because our development social rate C# programmers higher than VB programmers). Moreover, this book makes coding C# fun. You can't tell me applying base class and interface schemes to create a cool role-playing-game wasn't exciting.

So if you're not an english major/teacher/editor and think a few mistypes or spellings don't matter, you will definately want to get a copy of this book. I liked it so much that I purchased the Java book as well. Who would have ever thought programming was so fun!!!

i was trying to learn C# on my own, when i was searching through the web i cam across this book on your site which was also at a reasonable price. I checked on other sites but i found the price of this book more reasonable.

The book si really good as it explains most of the concepts very detailed way which helps everyone to understand. It is a book which is very worth than other books. I already heard about headfirst on java, but haven't read it. But now i read this book which is very informative.

Thanks a lot.

I really wished I would have researched this book further before purchasing it! The book description really caught my attention because I have read enough boring, overly technical books in my day. I was really hoping this `Brain-Friendly Guide' would be a welcomed alternative.

However, I have only finished 198 pages and have no intention of picking this book up ever again. (Kicking myself firmly for writing in the book, otherwise I could return it) There are several grammatical and technical mistakes for starters.

I spent hours thinking I did something incorrectly, several more hours re-reading chapters because things didn't work as expected. After talking with several experienced C# programmers I was assured that several of these examples were difficult for them to understand and that they didn't understand the logic either.

So with grammatical, technical and logical mistakes I do not view this as a good investment. (Please go to http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514822/errata/ and see all the corrections made for the January and April revisions there is 25 printed pages worth of corrections.)

Sorry O'Reilly and authors. I cannot imagine how difficult it is to write a technical book that isn't boring but I view this as a complete strike out. Hopefully your next at bat will end better.

This book was beyond what I was looking for at the time when I was looking for a way to learn C#. After having read through most of the book already, I feel that this book is the way to learn C#. Everything is clearly presented in a logical and fun way that doesn't bore like a textbook normally would. However, as with any book, nothing is perfect and there are some good-found errors throughout the book that I have found. BUT! Do not worry about the errors. On the Head First website you can find an error page that shows all the bugs people have found for the book. Also, if you go on the Head First C# forums you can find someone who learned C# from this book and wrote a program that holds all the bugs for each of the editions.


Beyond what I was looking for is right! This book comes with a whole fan base behind it that is ready to help you--they've helped me as a matter of fact. If you go to the head first website, you will find the head first C# forums where the authors actually do come on to help as well as the people learning with you. I was just looking for a book on C# and found a whole wonder of help.

I bought this book based on the reviews already written. I have a library of computer books and they was my third C# book. Simply put, it is as good as everyone says. Follow the plan outlined by the authors and you will learn and quickly. I have already ordered two more head first books and started reading Design Patterns yesterday. From now on, I will always see if a heads first book is available before buying any others.

Shall it be called "C# for Dummies" or "C# for Managers"? A lot of sales pitch for the brain friendliness and almost zero essence. I work in IT for 30 years and can not imagine working with someone who learned C# by reading this book. This approach may work as introduction to Internet for housewives, but they do not code in C#.

Head First C# was my first experience with the Head First series, although I have since also purchased the excellent Head First Design Patterns (Head First).

This book is designed to teach you C# from the beginning. Technical books can generally be categorized as either tutorials or reference texts -- and this is absolutely in the tutorial category. It's intended to be read and worked through in order, from start to finish. If you already know C# and are looking for a reference text, look elsewhere. If you're an experienced C++ programmer looking to learn C# but are already very familiar with object oriented programming, consider checking out the excellent and concise Accelerated C# 2008 (Accelerated). If you're an experienced C# programmer and just want to learn the advanced features of C#2 and C#3, you'll again want to look elsewhere, and you couldn't do better than C# in Depth: What you need to master C# 2 and 3.

But if you want to *learn* C# and object-oriented programming, and especially if you have little or no prior programming experience, look no further than this fantastic book. If you're reading reviews of the book, then you probably know two things: it has an unusual style and some quirky humor, and it has a bit more than it's fair share of errors. These two things are true, but there's a lot more about the book that you should know, and that's mostly what I want to talk about in this review. Before I move on, though, let me say two things. First, the conversational style and the humor are sometimes overstated -- this is a book about programming, and it's not a joke a minute or anything. I know that you can't Search Inside here on Amazon to see what the book is like, which I assume is because of the visuals-heavy design and unusual layout of the text, but just do a quick search for the book's website and you can download a full sample chapter and some other excerpts. Judge for yourself before dismissing an excellent book based on its unusual (but effective!) design. Second, the errata *are* extensive, but they don't get in the way of your learning. This book shines for its well-chosen examples, its focus on your learning (you'll be talked to rather than at), and its great overall structure -- and none of the errata interfere with any of that at all. If the extensive errata lists do bother you, I wrote a small free program that can sort through them for you and filter out the types of errors or page ranges you're not interested in. (You can find the link stickied at the web forum for Head First C#.)

There are also some features of the book that I don't see mentioned often enough, and which I want to comment on briefly before getting to the heart of the review. First, I love that the introduction is actually useful, giving you valuable insights on why the authors made the design choices they did (why text is in the pictures, rather than beneath them as captions, for example), and offering advice on how best to approach the book if you want to maximize your learning experience. I highly recommend reading it. Second, it's worth mentioning the way that the book uses the (free) Visual Studio 2008 IDE to make graphical Windows applications throughout, rather than focusing on a text editor and console applications like many other introductory texts. Visual Studio is a powerful IDE, and it *helps* you learn with syntax highlighting and Intellisense -- I'm very glad that the Head First C# authors chose to incorporate its use into the book, because it often allowed me to focus on concepts at first rather than syntax, picking that up gradually through repeated use with the IDE's guidance. Third, you'll be making some genuinely impressive software over the course of the book -- between the use of Visual Studio and the authors' being unafraid to assign projects that take several pages just to *describe*, you'll get a much better feel for what it's like to make real software than you would from the small "toy" examples that are more common in many other introductory books. (But don't worry, there's plenty of guidance, including fully annotated solution code for most of them, and a helpful web forum if you get stuck.) Finally, the book has the advantage of going to print for the first time after C# 3.0 and .NET 3.5 were released, and it fluently combines the various iterations of the language, teaching C# *as it now exists* from the ground up in an order that makes sense for someone learning now from scratch, rather than taking the more common but less sensible route of introducing C#1.0 features before C#2 before C#3. This is great, because it allows the authors to introduce some of the powerful and convenient features of the newer editions of the language and framework -- the stuff that really makes C# appealing as a language -- quite early in the book.

The funny thing about Head First C# is that the conversational tone, the humor, the quirky layout, and the pictures make the book seem completely un-academic. At first glance, it's as far from an academic textbook as you could possibly get! But I've come to realize that reading through the book from the beginning, doing all the exercises, is as close to the structured learning experience of an academic course as you can get in book form. The brilliance of Head First C# isn't in the phrasing of any given sentence or the coding style in a particular snippet -- it's in the overall structure of the book and especially in the examples chosen for exercises, which allow you to build up your knowledge incrementally while still reviewing past material. (Which is why the errata really aren't a big deal.) I've seen some reviews point out the book's "redundancy" as a flaw, and I just shake my head. The book is often repetitious, but never redundant, and always deliberately -- seeing the same material repeatedly from different perspectives and at different times is absolutely key to learning anything, and the repetition is one of the best features of the Head First series in general and this book in particular.

So there are errors. So there's a bit of fuzziness in the phrasing sometimes. So it doesn't cover Advanced Language Topic A or B. So what? This book is a teaching tool. It's a full course -- instructor, fellow students, textbook, homework, projects, review sessions, and conversations with peers -- stuffed onto paper, rolled up, printed, and stuck between covers.

I've learned C#, and I've *retained* what I've learned. I've had fun doing it. And if you too want to learn C# and programming, I can't recommend Head First C# highly enough.

The concept behind the book is great... the editing and quality control is a joke.

If you are new to programming, this book will frustrate you. Despite the best efforts of your brain trying to struggle around the errors in the book, this book's often convoluted logic (due to the errata) will make learning C# a very tiresome experience.

The snappy "Leave-It-To-Beaver" photos are ok, but the quality control on this book just needs to be improved. Check out the errata on this book, it's just insane.

O livro é incrível, o melhor livro de computação que já comprei. Melhor que a série Deitel.

Amazing book!

There are over 43 pages of corrections (errata) to the first edition (11/07) of this text. It is inexcusable. You can go to O'Reilly's site and print the errata lists, three of them, to use as cliff notes to decode this book. I have purchased three other titles in the Head First series that are excellent. The quality of this one is horrible. Not only do some of the programming examples have minor syntax mistakes, but entire sections of code are incorrect. In one case the errata recommends downloading a pdf because the text has been substantially revised "to enhance clarity and quality of learning".

If you want to purchase this book, make sure you get the latest edition.

Kevin

This book also represents an innovative way to learn and not only C# knowledge itself. Have you ever tried to learn something and end up being frustrated with the way it is being taught? This book not only explains C# but it also explains how to learn quickly and how to obtain your edge on learning itself!

There's a reason why there is no "Search Inside" feature for this book...in my opinion. This thing is a train-wreck. This book is like the Robin Williams of technical books...It jumps around all over the place, it's not funny and you can't wait to slam it against something. There's pictures of dogs, cats, cups and couches. It's way too busy...If you grab one end of the book and you flip through the pages as fast as you, I think you can actually give yourself a seizure...in my opinion...

This book is great, if you're looking for a book to learn C# this is it. I wish all books had pictures. (sigh)

This is my second Head First Book (first was HTML), and I really enjoy the style of these books. You don't just sit down and read through these books (and fall asleep like most others I've read). You will be at your PC working through the exercises, doing more coding than reading. That's why I wanted to learn C#, to write programs, not just learn a language.

Experience is the best teacher. The exercises in this book are followed with solutions to help you over the rough spots in your learning. There are also 3 labs where no solutions are provided, so you are challenged to solve these on your own. But, you're not completely on your own. Head First has a forum dedicated to each of its books, and the C# forum is the place to ask questions and share ideas.

If you're looking for a place to start I highly recommend this book.

Head first C# is an interesting approach to learning, unfortunately its many errors and inaccuracies makes it virtually useless. I have always been a quick learner and became quite frustrated with the difficulties I was encountering with some of the problems and projects. Then I found the publishers web site and the 17 pages! of errata for my 2nd edition!!! This book has completely wrong statements, problems that required techniques from LATER in the book and even a 6 page section of the book that needed replaced by a printed PDF amongst its many, MANY errors, typos and inaccuracies. Fortunately the local bookseller I bought it from took it back, I hope you save yourself the trouble.

If you just have to buy this book make absolutely sure you are getting a 4th edition (has 4/08) in the bottom right corner of the copyright page)

This is my second experience with the Head First series of books. I must say that when I was looking for a C# book to teach me the language and I saw that there was a Head First book that I stopped looking.

This book gets you up to speed very fast. The examples are entertaining and not the usual run of the mill computer book examples. To me the book seems to be oriented toward game creation, which I'm not that interested in, but they certainly held my interest, although, I have to admit that I didn't work through the examples completely, I was able to see how the elements of the C# worked together. I've been back to the book a couple of times to see how they did things a couple of times now.

Just browsed through this book, so I cannot tell anything about the C# content, but I definitely decided not to buy it. This is why:

I like it when programming books are theoretical, not too dry, and help me to gain a good perspective/knowledge of the language. My top favorite example of a good programming book is: The Ruby Programming Language. A extremely refreshing, well written, well designed, sound book.

Head First is conceptually a total difference.

You like it:
The method uses a extremely playful way of teaching. The layout is very playful, with lot's of funny fonts and funny pictures. There is really a lot to see and to experience. Learning has never been so much fun. Finally a book that really helps you to learn, instead of being so dull and dry, like all those other programming books.

You don't:
I would say: there are a lot of irrelevant nonsense pictures, the layout is extremely inconsistent, messy, distracting. All kind of texts with random font-sizes scream to you for attention, like a horde of hyperactive children. Only looking at the pages makes you tired. There is no way you can easily get information out of this book. Trying to read it makes you decide to throw it away immediately.

The other reviews show that there are a lot of people who like this approach, something I cannot fathom. But that's life I guess, everybody is different. everybody learns different.

Conclusion:
The head first approach fits you or not. You hate it, or you'll love it.
Personally, I hate it. It doesn't fit my learning-style. Maybe it does fit yours.

A couple of other reviews on this book confirm what I have discovered in the few chapters I have had time to read, and that is this an excellent book. I have about seven languages under my belt, but this is my first dive into C#, and as a result of this book, I am coming up to speed on this language very quickly. I thank the authors for going out of their way to make the learning curve enjoyable.
Nuff said.

Head First C# is exactly what I was looking for in a programming book --- minimal technobabble and light on the concepts. I wanted to see what the language can do and that's what this book delivers. It's a hands-on book so it's geared toward readers who learn by doing. It's not for readers who want to sit down and read it cover to cover.

If you want to be a real C# programmer, this book is a great place to start!

bought this book with very little programming experience and must say, its a fantastic book for those looking to dive into the world of object oriented programming.

It's easy to read, the projects are well thought out and get you involved right from the get go.

The authors are very clear in the beginning of the book that if you are an experienced programmer, or looking for a reference guide, this is NOT the book for you.

A read a lot books about C# and .net stuff. But there are one big problem with all them they are all so boring... It's not about this book i never think that book about writing code can be so fun and interesting. Thanks amazon for open this book for me because i couldn't find this book in my country.

I'm going to agree with most of the other reviews here. I think this book is a spectacular learning device. I just finished the book off over two weeks, and feel like I've gotten more out of it than any other book by far. I still used some other books to get a little more in depth, but all in all I have no complaints.

I think a new user could take this book and write some good code when they were done. Make sure you do all of the interactive exercises, they will help to ingrain your knowledge.

I have over 20 Beginning/Professional C# books and this is by far my favorite.

I would like to say that I am very impressed with this book. It is not often I find books that keep me interested. I have read books on C, C++ and Java but they all had programs that were of little value. With this book the first program your create shows what you can do with C# by creating a simple Contact program. I am very pleased with this book and recommend it to anyone wanting to learn c# for windows applications.

As an experienced programmer, I've found this book to be very good at getting me "up and running" and writing my own C# code (I'm about 1/3 of the way through).

However, the book is clearly intended to be appropriate for less experienced programmers as well, and I think it would be very confusing for someone who didn't already have a fair amount of programming experience.

Specifically there are a lot of typos and errors in this book which would, I think, make it very difficult for a beginner to know whether they're doing the right thing or not. In a lot of cases, I find it difficult to tell what I'm supposed to be doing in a given case because, for example, I'll be told to create a particular field or method for an object, and then I won't be told (directly or indirectly) what I'm supposed to use it for. Then, in the exercise "solution", I will see what the field is used for, but that functional requirement was never stated as part of the exercise description.

Sometimes the reader will be told to create a particular field or method as "private" and then, two pages later, the solution will show it as a "public" field. As an experienced programmer, I can usually guess that the book has made an error in a case like this, but I could easily see a beginner wasting a lot of time due to errors like this in the book.

Here are the specific errors I've found just today:

Page 265:
The "Sharpen Your Pencil" exercise shows a line that states:
Bees[6] = Bees[2];
But the solution shows it as
Bees[6] = Bees[0];
Which makes it impossible for the reader to come up with the correct solution.

Page 271:
The user is instructed to create a method called "ScareLittleChildren()" but is not told what it is supposed to do or when to invoke it. The user is also told to have the "Honk()" method pop up a message box that says "Boo! Gotcha!"

On the following page, the solution has the "Boo! Gotcha" functionality moved to the "ScareLittleChildren()" method.

Page 292:
The user is told that the "diningRoom" object needs to implement the "IHasExteriorDoor" interface, when the previous page explicitly stated that the locations with exterior doors are the front yard, the back yard, the living room and the kitchen.

The user is also never told what to do differently with the Locations that have exterior doors (in terms of implementing the form that drives this exercise). Locations can have "exits" and "doors", but we are never explicitly told whether "doors" are considered "exits"; most people would consider those words synonyms in common usage, but it's only by close examination of the data diagram and sample code that the user can guess that it's probable that the two terms should be considered mutually exclusive.

Page 295:
The exercise solution shows an override method for OutsideWithDoor.Description but not for RoomWithDoor.Description.

These are just the errors that I've found today. I noticed a bunch the day before yesterday, too, when I was working through an earlier section of the book. As I said, I would think that such frequent errors would make the book very confusing for a beginner. It's too bad, since I remember a time (the mid-90s) when O'Reilly books were known for their extremely thorough attention to detail. Pity that no longer appears to be the case.

I've picked up several learn-on-your-own programming books over the years, this is the only one that has kept my interest. Its learning style is somewhat decentralized. What I mean by that is that not all the material is covered in the traditional form (from left to right, top to bottom). You have puzzles, fill in the blanks and other interesting systems. Excellent approach to learning. I do not see myself going back to the traditional, boring, paperweights!

Outstanding book. Easy on the eyes and easy to read. The pictures and examples really get your attention and make you want to continue on. This book dives right into programming instead of a history lesson with a million boring words.

I recommend this for new AND experienced programmers alike!

Just received the book yesterday. I purchased this book because of the pos reviews. At the first sight I dislike the type and the size of fonts already. The text are far too small for those who already past the midage but want to upgrade their progr knowledge (I am certified in programming in C). Secondly there is no obvious structure on the pages. You may say that you can start to read from the middel of the pages then go to the top and end up at the bottom left. I have not yet read and try the exercise yet. The arrows, handwritten texts and marks, poor cartoonish drawings make me dizzy. I believe from the reviews, that this is not a bad book. The content of this book may be good and the newbies for programming can dig out the treasure which is covered by the mess in this book (and other Head First books). Now I just can give 3 stars, for the benefit of doubt.

This book gets 5 stars even though at times not all specifications for programs were explicitly laid out. Even though haphazard placement of sporadic notes permeated this book from beginning to end, I really enjoyed reading it and learning from it.

Seriously, this book from the first page gears you up not just to write good code, but to think about design. It builds up your skill slowly but surely and in such a logical way, once you get to the first project, you are ready to get things going. For those learning to program in C#, I must say this book beats all the rest. Enjoy

I have been programming for 20+ years - mostly c++ - and am learning C#. I bought this book based on reviews - mostly positive (one negative). I should have listened to the negative.
The book started out OK - I thought the few scribble notes were kind of cute. Then the typos and incorrect data slowed me down. I am well aware that there are always a few typos and bugs that slip through the cracks with any release, but this book has way more than "a few." I was spending too much time trying to figure out what the sentence was supposed to be saying. I was also spending too much time trying to figure out why my result did not match the book's result - most of the time the problem was that the book's result was wrong. As I progressed through the book, the scribble notes became more frequent and less cute and the arrows were driving me crazy. I could not keep track of what was required or what the author was trying to teach me at that particular moment. There were times when the requirements of an exercise were not fully given. I had to look at the solution to find the requirements.
I struggled through the first 150 pages, skimmed through the next 50 pages, then put the book back on my shelf and started looking for a better book.

OK, first of all, I'm not a tech book snob. I buy Dummies books and have been happy with them (if a little guilty) as introductory texts. I think we all have experienced the numbing quality of a certain kind of technical writing, and I'm always on the lookout for books that are written with the same enthusiasm I feel for a topic, and that are written to be understood by regular people. Like me.

So, I was quite interested in this book based on its description; it really sounded like they had worked hard to make this series accessible. (And I'm sure they did work really hard at it!) But I have to say I think the result is terrible. I tried a number of times to get into it, thinking perhaps I just needed to acclimate myself to the style and I'd start to appreciate it. But I've had to face the fact that I simply think it's a bad book.

Essentially, I think they've gone way overboard with the informal concept. The pages are so cluttered with doodles and pictures and snippets of text and faux-handwriting and arrows that it's just plain hard to follow the conceptual thread of the instruction. The information is so fragmented that there is no coherence, no flow, and and it's nearly impossible to get a complete grasp of the concepts they're trying to get across in the lessons. The reader has to work extra hard just trying to figure out what the heck they're trying to teach him, because they spend so much effort trying to disguise the information by burying it in "interesting" formatting like crossword puzzles and games and all sorts of other foofaraw. Foofaraw, I say!

The introduction says this is how our brains learn best, but I shudder to think what it says about us if that's true. Truly, when working through this book I felt like I was being treated like a child who is incapable of serious thought and who needed to be infotained into learning something. This really does seem like a book that's intended to maintain the attention of ADHD children by any means necessary.

I love O'Reilly and I appreciate what they're trying to do with this series, and I almost feel bad criticizing their efforts. It seems I'm in the vast minority here, too, since this book gets raves... but I feel like I'm pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. I'm continuing my search for a well-written C# book that is accessible and explains things to me like an intelligent adult, and actually helps me learn programming concepts.

A last note: although O'Reilly doesn't seem to support the "Search Inside This Book" feature at Amazon, you can go to their website and look at a sample chapter from this book. They have the entire Chapter 5 in PDF form, and it's a good example of what the book is like. I highly recommend you go look at it before purchasing this book. You can decide for yourself whether you like it or not!

What More can i say, if you want to learn C# buy this book.
im not a conventional learner when it comes to new matrial, this book is both visual and informative to help you understand C#

I've read several books on C#; I wish I would have read this one first. I was finally able to grasp some key object oriented concepts that were still fuzzy. I'm a visual learner, so the illustrations, etc. made it much easier to wrap my mind around these concepts. I'd recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn C#.

I look forward to reading some of the other books in the Head First Series. I hope they update the Java book to v6.