Sams Teach Yourself Visual C# 2008 in 24 Hours: Complete Starter Kit (Sams Teach Yourself -- Hours Series)

Preface

Introduction

With Microsoft's introduction of the .NET platform, a new, exciting programming language was born. Visual C# is now the language of choice for developing on the .NET platform, and Microsoft has even written a majority of the .NET Framework using Visual C#. Visual C# is a modern object-oriented language designed and developed from the ground up with a best-of-breed mentality, implementing and expanding on the best features and functions found in other languages. Visual C# 2008 combines the power and flexibility of C++ with some of the simplicity of Visual C#.

Audience and Organization

This book is targeted toward those who have little or no programming experience or who might be picking up Visual C# as a second language. The book has been structured and written with a purpose: to get you productive as quickly as possible. I've used my experiences in writing applications with Visual C# and teaching Visual C# to create a book that I hope cuts through the fluff and teaches you what you need to know. All too often, authors fall into the trap of focusing on the technology rather than on the practical application of the technology. I've worked hard to keep this book focused on teaching you practical skills that you can apply immediately toward a development project. Feel free to post your suggestions or success stories at http://www.jamesfoxall.com/forums.

This book is divided into five parts, each of which focuses on a different aspect of developing applications with Visual C# 2008. These parts generally follow the flow of tasks you'll perform as you begin creating your own programs with Visual C# 2008. I recommend that you read them in the order in which they appear.

• Part I, "The Visual C# 2008 Environment," teaches you about the Visual C# environment, including how to navigate and access Visual C#'s numerous tools. In addition, you'll learn about some key development concepts such as objects, collections, and events.
• Part II, "Building a User Interface," shows you how to build attractive and functional user interfaces. In this part, you'll learn about forms and controls—the user interface elements such as text boxes and list boxes.
• Part III, "Making Things Happen: Programming," teaches you the nuts and bolts of Visual C# 2008 programming—and there's a lot to learn. You'll discover how to create classes and procedures, as well as how to store data, perform loops, and make decisions in code. After you've learned the core programming skills, you'll move into object-oriented programming and debugging applications.
• Part IV, "Working with Data," introduces you to working with graphics, text files, and programming databases, and shows you how to automate external applications such as Word and Excel. In addition, this part teaches you how to manipulate a user's file system and the Windows Registry.
• Part V, "Deploying Solutions and Beyond," shows you how to distribute an application that you've created to an end user's computer. In Hour 24, "The 10,000-Foot View," you'll learn about Microsoft's .NET initiative from a higher, less-technical level.

Many readers of previous editions have taken the time to give me input on how to make this book better. Overwhelmingly, I was asked to have examples that build on the examples in the previous chapters. In this book, I have done that as much as possible. Now, instead of learning concepts in isolated bits, you'll be building a feature-rich Picture Viewer program throughout the course of this book. You'll begin by building the basic application. As you progress through the chapters, you'll add menus and toolbars to the program, build an Options dialog box, modify the program to use the Windows Registry and a text file, and even build a setup program to distribute the application to other users. I hope you find this approach beneficial in that it enables you to learn the material in the context of building a real program.

Conventions Used in This Book

This book uses several design elements and conventions to help you prioritize and reference the information it contains:

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Note - By the Way boxes provide useful sidebar information that you can read immediately or circle back to without losing the flow of the topic at hand.

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Tip - Did You Know? boxes highlight information that can make your Visual C# programming more effective.

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Caution - Watch Out! boxes focus your attention on problems or side effects that can occur in specific situations.

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New terms appear italic for emphasis.

In addition, this book uses various typefaces to help you distinguish code from regular English. Code is presented in a monospace font. Placeholders—words or characters that represent the real words or characters you would type in code—appear in italic monospace. When you are asked to type or enter text, that text appears in bold.

Some code statements presented in this book are too long to appear on a single line. In these cases, a line-continuation character (an underscore) is used to indicate that the following line is a continuation of the current statement.

Onward and Upward!

This is an exciting time to be learning how to program. It's my sincerest wish that when you finish this book, you feel capable of creating, debugging, and deploying modest Visual C# programs, using many of Visual C#'s tools. Although you won't be an expert, you'll be surprised at how much you've learned. And I hope this book will help you determine your future direction as you proceed down the road to Visual C# mastery.

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