Introduction

Introduction

Microsoft Visual C# is a powerful but simple language aimed primarily at developers creating applications by using the Microsoft .NET Framework. It inherits many of the best features of C++ and Microsoft Visual Basic, but few of the inconsistencies and anachronisms, resulting in a cleaner and more logical language. The advent of C# 2.0 has seen several important new features added to the language, including Generics, Iterators, and anonymous methods. The development environment provided by Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 makes these powerful features easy to use, and the many new wizards and enhancements included in Visual Studio 2005 can greatly improve your productivity as a developer.

The aim of this book is to teach you the fundamentals of programming with C# by using Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework. You will learn the features of the C# language, and then use them to build applications running on the Microsoft Windows operating system. By the time you complete this book, you will have a thorough understanding of C# and will have used it to build Windows Forms applications, access Microsoft SQL Server databases, develop ASP.NET Web applications, and build and consume a Web service.