Learning C# 3.0

Preface

Congratulations! You’ve decided to learn to program. Maybe you’re learning it for a class, maybe you’re learning it to get ahead at work, or maybe you’re learning it just for fun. Whatever the reason, we’ve written this book to help you learn C#. You don’t need a language reference, or a code analysis book; you want to start from square one and learn to program. In that respect, your desire to learn how to program is more important than which specific language you choose. There are plenty of modern languages out there, and lots of them are quite similar, under the hood.

Why, out of all the languages you could learn, should you pick C#? There are several good reasons:

• C# is the preferred language for use with Microsoft’s .NET platform. That means C# was created for writing Windows applications, and as you know, the majority of the world’s computers run Windows.

• C# is supported by Visual Studio and its counterpart, Visual C# Express. Visual Studio makes writing code easier and faster in hundreds of different ways. And did we mention C# Express is free?

• C# is designed to be powerful enough to write serious business applications, but simple enough to be easy to learn. C# was influenced by the older, and hugely popular, languages C++ and Java™, but was intended to bring all the good features of those languages without the quirks that they’ve acquired over the years.

So, although there are plenty of languages you could learn, we think that C# is an excellent choice to start with.