Every 10 years or so, a new approach to programming hits like a tsunami. In the early 1980s, the new technologies were Unix, which could be run on a desktop, and a powerful new language called C, developed by AT&T. The early 90s brought Windows and C++. Each of these developments represented a sea change in the way we approached programming. Now, .NET and C# are the next wave, and this book is intended to help you ride it.
Microsoft has “bet the company” on .NET. When a company of their size and influence spends billions of dollars and reorganizes its entire corporate structure to support a new platform, programmers take notice. It turns out that .NET represents a major change in the way you’ll think about programming. It is, in short, a new development platform designed to facilitate object-oriented Internet development. The programming language of choice for this platform is C#, which builds on the lessons learned from C (high performance), C++ (object-oriented structure), Java™ (garbage collection, high security), and Visual Basic (rapid development) to create a new language ideally suited for developing component-based, n-tier distributed web applications.
This book is a tutorial, both on C# and on writing .NET applications with C#. If you are already proficient in a programming language, you may be able to skim a number of the early chapters, but be sure to read through Chapter 1, which provides an overview of the language and the .NET platform. If you are new to programming, you’ll want to read the book as the King of Hearts instructed the White Rabbit: “Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”[1]
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