C# 5.0 Programmer's Reference

INTRODUCTION
Who Should Read This Book
This book is intended for intermediate and advanced programmers who have already programmed
in C# or some other language. This book describes C# in detail but it does so quickly and assumes
you already understand basic programming concepts. If you’re a beginner, you can still use this
book to learn to program in C#, but it will be a bit harder. If you get stuck, feel free to e-mail me
at RodStephens@CSharpHelper.com and I’ll try to put you back on the right track.
One of the main reasons this book assumes you know programming basics is it’s hard to find a
simple order in which to present topics in depth. For example, declaring and using variables is one
of the most basic concepts in programming. (This book covers that early in Chapter 4, “Data Types,
Variables, and Constants.”) However, in C# variable declarations are different depending on whether
they are inside a class’s method. (In some languages methods are also called procedures, subprocedures,
routines, subroutines, or functions.) If you already know what a method is, then the book
can cover variables in depth. If you are unfamiliar with methods, a book can present only the basics
of variable declarations, then cover classes, and finally return to the topic of variables. This book
assumes you know basics such as what a variable is and what methods are, so it can quickly move
through topics without a lot of repeating and backtracking.
If fundamentals such as variable declarations, data types, classes, and arrays are familiar to you, you
should have no problem with this book. The index and reference appendices should be particularly
useful in helping you remember the syntax for performing various C# tasks such as creating a class or
making a generic method.
If you don’t know what data types are, what a for loop is, and what an if statement does, you
can probably pick those things up as you go along, but you may need to go back and reread a few
chapters after you get the hang of things.
Approach
A program can interact with the user in many ways. It can read and write text in a console window.
It can use Windows Forms and controls to provide a more graphical interface. A program can use
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) controls to build an interface that is even more richly
graphical and interactive than Windows Forms interfaces. Recently, a Windows Store program can
use controls similar to those used in a WPF application to run in the Windows 8 operating system.
Some programs provide no interface for the user and instead provide tools and services for other
programs to use behind the scenes.
Building applications that use these different approaches takes a lot of work. The steps you take to
build a WPF application are different from those you use to build a console application. However,
no matter which kind of application you build, behind the user interface sits a bunch of good old
C# code. You use the same syntax to create classes, loops, methods, and variables whether you’re
building Windows Forms applications or WPF applications. The same C# language enables you
to build applications to run in a console window, on the Windows desktop, in Windows 8, in a
browser, or even in Windows Phone.
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