Stephens' C# Programming with Visual Studio® 2010 24-Hour Trainer

xxvii

INTRODUCTION

No introductory book can cover every programming topic. However, the topics this book does

cover give you a good foundation of fundamental programming skills that you can use as a base for

further study.

THE WROX 24-Hour Trainer APPROACH

Educators have known for many years that different people use different learning styles most effec-

tively. Personally, I learn best by watching and doing. However, different students may learn best by:

Reading a textbook



Looking at non-written material such as pictures and graphs



Listening to an instructor lecture



Watching someone demonstrate techniques



Doing exercises and examples



Good instructors try to incorporate material that helps students with all of these learning styles.

Combining text, lecture, demonstration, discussion, and exercises lets every student pick up as much

as possible using whichever methods work best.

Like a good instructor, this book uses materials that address each learning style. It uses text and fig-

ures to help visual learners, screencasts that provide visual demonstrations and auditory instruction,

step-by-step instruction to help you do it yourself, and exercises for independent study.

The book is divided into small, bite-sized lessons that begin with a discussion of a particular concept

or technique, complete with figures, notes, tips, and other standard fare for instructional books. The

lessons are short and tightly focused on a single task so you can finish each one in a single sitting.

You shouldn’t need to stop in the middle of a lesson and leave concepts half-learned (at least if you

turn off your phone).

After describing the main concept, the lesson includes a Try It section that invites you to perform a

programming exercise to solidify the lesson’s ideas.

The Try It begins with a high-level overview. It then contains several subsections:

Lesson Requirements



describes the exercise so you know what should happen.

Hints



gives pointers about possible confusing aspects of the problem (if they’re needed).

Step-by-Step



provides a numbered series of steps that show how to solve the problem.

A screencast on the accompanying DVD shows me (the author) working through the Try It problem.

Additional commentary at the end of the screencast highlights extensions of the lesson’s main concepts.

After the Try It’s Step-by-Step section, the lesson concludes with extra exercises that you can solve for

further practice and to expand the lesson’s main ideas. I recommend that you at least skim the exercises

and ask yourself if you think you could do them. Solutions to all of the exercises are available for down-

load on the book’s web site.

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xxviii

INTRODUCTION

WEB SITES

Actually the book has two web sites: Wrox’s version and my version. Both sites

contain the book’s source code.

To find the Wrox web page, go to

www.wrox.com and search for the book by title

or ISBN. Once you’ve found the book, click the Download Code link on the book’s

detail page to obtain all the source code for the book. Once you download the code,

just decompress it with your favorite compression tool. Alternatively, you can go to

the main Wrox code download page at

http://www.wrox.com/dynamic/books/

download.aspx

to see the code available for this book and all other Wrox books.

To find my web page for the book, go to

www.CSharpHelper.com/24hour.html.

The following list summarizes each lesson’s structure.

Lesson text

Try It

Lesson Requirements

Hints (if needed)

Step-by-Step

Exercises

The one thing that a good classroom experience has that this book doesn’t is direct interaction. You

can’t shout questions at the instructor, work as a team with fellow students, or discuss exercises

with other students.

Although the book itself can’t help here, there are at least three things you can do to get this kind of

interaction. First, join the Wrox P2P (peer-to-peer) discussion forum for this book. As the section

“p2p.wrox.com” later in this introduction says, you can join the discussion forum to post questions,

provide answers, see what other readers are doing with the book’s material, and generally keep tabs

on book-related topics. (You can join other Visual C# discussion groups on the Web, too, but this

one is dedicated to this book and you know I’ll be watching it.)

Second, you can browse or subscribe to my blog at

blog.CSharpHelper.com to see new example pro-

grams, articles, and commentary. Many of the entries describe tips, tricks, and short example programs

that demonstrate techniques that you may find useful for your Visual C# programs.

Finally, if you get stuck on an exercise or some other program you’re working on, e-mail me at

[e-mail]. I won’t solve the exercises for you, but I’ll try to clarify problems

or give you any hints you need so you can solve them yourself.

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