How This Book Is Structured

This book is divided into six sections, as follows:

• Introduction: which you're reading at the moment.

• The C# Language: which covers all aspects of the C# language, from the fundamentals to object- oriented techniques.

• Windows Programming: this section looks at how to write Windows applications in C#, and how to deploy them.

• Web Programming: this section describes Web application development, Web services, and Web application deployment.

• Data Access: which looks at using data in your applications, including data stored in files on your hard disk, data stored in XML format, and data in databases.

• Additional Techniques: this section examines some extra ways of using C# and the .NET Framework, including assemblies, attributes, XML documentation, networking, and graphics programming with GDI+.

The following sections describe the chapters in the five major sections of this book.

The C# Language (Chapters 1–13)

Chapter 1 introduces you to C# and how it fits into the .NET landscape. You'll learn the fundamentals of programming in this environment, and how VS fits in.

Chapter 2 starts you off with writing C# applications in VS. You'll look at the syntax of C# and put the language to use with sample command line and Windows applications. These examples will show you just how quick and easy it can be to get up and running, and along the way you'll be introduced to the VS development environment and the basic windows and tools that you'll be using throughout the book.

Next you'll learn more about the basics of the C# language. You'll learn what variables are and how to manipulate them in Chapter 3. You'll enhance the structure of your applications with flow control (looping and branching) in Chapter 4, and see some more advanced variable types such as arrays in Chapter 5. In Chapter 6 you'll start to encapsulate your code in the form of functions, which make it much easier to perform repetitive operations and make your code much more readable.

By the start of Chapter 7 you'll have a handle on the fundamentals of the C# language, and will focus on debugging your applications. This involves looking at outputting trace information as your applications are executed, and at how VS can be used to trap errors and lead you to solutions for them with its powerful debugging environment.

From Chapter 8 onward you'll learn about Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), starting with a look at what this term means, and an answer to the eternal question "What is an object?" OOP can seem quite difficult at first. The whole of Chapter 8 is devoted to demystifying it and explaining what makes it so great, and you won't actually be dealing with much C# code until the very end of the chapter.

All this changes in Chapter 9, when you put theory into practice and start using OOP in your C# applications. This is where the true power of C# lies. You'll start by looking at how to define classes and interfaces, then move on to class members (including fields, properties, and methods) in Chapter 10. At the end of that chapter you'll start to assemble a card game application, which will be developed over several chapters, and will help to illustrate OOP.

Once you've leaned how OOP works in C#, you'll move on in Chapter 11 to look at common OOP scenarios, including dealing with collections of objects, and comparing and converting objects. Chapter 12 then moves on to look at a new and very useful feature of C# in .NET 2.0: generics, which allows you to create very flexible classes. Finally Chapter 13 rounds off the discussion of the C# language and OOP with some additional techniques, and notable events, which become very important in, for example, Windows programming.

Windows Programming (Chapters 14–17)

Chapter 14 starts by introducing you to what is meant by Windows programming, and looks at how this is achieved in VS. Again, you'll start with the basics and build up your knowledge over this chapter and in Chapter 15, seeing how you can use the wealth of controls supplied by the .NET Framework in your applications. You'll quickly understand how .NET enables you to build Windows applications in a graphical way, and assemble advanced applications with the minimum of effort and time.

Chapter 16 looks at some commonly used features that can add specialized features with ease, such as file management, printing, and so on. Chapter 17 then discusses deploying your applications, including making installation programs to enable your users to get up and running with your applications in double-quick time.

Web Programming (Chapters 18–21)

This section is structured in a similar way to the Windows programming section. It starts with Chapter 18 describing the controls that make up the simplest of Web applications, and how you can fit them together and make them perform tasks using ASP.NET. Chapter 19 builds on this and introduces more advanced techniques, versatile controls, and state management in the context of the Web, as well as conforming to Web standards.

Chapter 20 is an excursion into the wonderful world of Web services, which are set to revolutionize the way people use the Internet. Web services enable you to expose complex data and functionality to Web and windows applications in a platform-independent way. This chapter discusses how to use and create Web services, and the additional tools that .NET provides, including security.

Finally, Chapter 21 examines the deployment of Web applications and services, in particular the new features of VS that enable you to publish applications to the Web with the click of a button.

Data Access (Chapters 22–25)

Chapter 22 looks at how your applications can save and retrieve data to disk, both as simple text files and as more complex representations of data. You'll also see how to compress data, how to work with legacy data such as comma separated value (CSV) files, and how to monitor and act on file system changes.

In Chapter 23 you'll learn about what is fast becoming the de-facto standard for data exchange, namely XML. You'll have touched on XML at several times in preceding chapters, but in this chapter you'll lay out the ground rules and see what all the excitement is about. This will be put into practice straight away in Chapter 24, where you'll see how to use ADO.NET to interact with databases. ADO.NET includes techniques to deal with XML, and much more.

Chapter 25 will then show you some excellent ways to make use of ADO.NET in your applications via data binding, which is a great way to simplify database access—especially since it requires little effort on your part to provide a user interface to data.

Additional Techniques (Chapters 26–30)

In the last section of the book you'll look at a wide variety of additional C# and .NET subjects. In Chapter 26 you'll learn more about .NET assemblies, the basic building blocks of all sorts of .NET applications. In Chapter 27 you'll look at attributes, a powerful way to both include additional information about types in assemblies, and add functionality that would otherwise be difficult to implement.

Chapter 28 deals with XML documentation and how you can document your applications at the source code level. You'll see how to add this information and how to use and extract it. You'll take this to the point where you'll be able to generate expansive MSDN-style documentation from your code.

Next you'll look at networking in Chapter 29, and how your applications can communicate with each other and with other services across various types of networks. Finally, Chapter 30 comes almost as a bit of light relief from many of the involved techniques you'll have seen earlier in the book by covering the subject of graphics programming with GDI+. You'll learn how to manipulate graphics and style your applications, opening the door to a vast array of C# applications and having a bit of fun along the way.