C# Programmer's Cookbook

Rating:
Summary: Great for what it is supposed to be!
Review: I too feel compelled to disagree with the 'Bad Review' that dismissed this book as being for beginners and just a repeat of the MSDN material.

I've been using .NET C# for years and I am not not a beginner to OO and have been a professional programmer for more than 20 years. I've spent many hours in the MSDN help files and searching the internet for esoteric answers. This book contains many succinct solutions to everyday problems. It's not supposed to be a 'big picture' book or only focus on the esoteric. Sure, some of the recipes do qualify for trivial.

Before I bought it I was able to scan the table of contents and see solutions to tricky problems that I had solved and many others that I had interest in or could reasonably see needing. By scanning the solutions I was familiar with, such as cryptography, threading, and networking, it was clear the authors had a clear understanding of the problems and were able to boil it down to real solutions for real problems. While MSDN does contain many good examples, many times it misses the mark when it comes down to relevancy for solving a real problem.

If you are like me, and want solutions at your finger tips, and are willing to pay a little to save a lot of time, this book is a great tool to have available.

Rating:
Summary: A very useful resource
Review: It is perfect. The simple, to the point style makes this book an excellent guide to the real world problems.

Rating:
Summary: Mostly trivial recipes
Review: May be a good source of reference for a beginner in .NET but most of the recipes don't tackle any tough problems. A lot of what is in this book can be easily obtained from free sources such as MSDN online ...

Rating:
Summary: excellent format and content
Review: this book follows a "problem/solution/code" format that really helps to cut down the amount of fluff you always get in other books. it covers a wide range of subjects (including "beginner" topics) but in a very efficient way. even though all these topics could be dug up thru web searches, the quality of info here is far more consistent and reliable. i hope to see more books take this approach.

Rating:
Summary: Disagree with the bad review
Review: This book has a lot of good info in it and its all right there at your fingertips. One of the main reasons for a book is just that. Many resources are available on the Internet but they have to be found and kept track of. This book puts a lot together so you don't have to do the search work. I like it!

Rating:
Summary: Quick, task-focused how-to's that work!
Review: This book is in my favorite format for development titles: a "cookbook." When you have a specific application requirement to implement, check out this book first before you reinvent the wheel. Jones covers topics such as:

- delay signing an assembly
- creating an animated system tray icon
- performing screen captures
- protecting files with symmetric encryption

and much more. The C# Programmer's Cookbook is already one of my favorites. Note that it is aimed more at the intermediate developer, but .NET coders at any level will find useful explanations from this excellent publication.

Rating:
Summary: A very useful resource
Review: This book is in my favorite format for development titles: a "cookbook." When you have a specific application requirement to implement, check out this book first before you reinvent the wheel. Jones covers topics such as:

- delay signing an assembly
- creating an animated system tray icon
- performing screen captures
- protecting files with symmetric encryption

and much more. The C# Programmer's Cookbook is already one of my favorites. Note that it is aimed more at the intermediate developer, but .NET coders at any level will find useful explanations from this excellent publication.

Rating:
Summary: Quick, task-focused how-to's that work!
Review: This book is in my favorite format for development titles: a "cookbook." When you have a specific application requirement to implement, check out this book first before you reinvent the wheel. Jones covers topics such as:

- delay signing an assembly
- creating an animated system tray icon
- performing screen captures
- protecting files with symmetric encryption

and much more. The C# Programmer's Cookbook is already one of my favorites. Note that it is aimed more at the intermediate developer, but .NET coders at any level will find useful explanations from this excellent publication.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome Book - Looking forward to 2nd Edition
Review: This book is so good and I highly recommend it. I hope the Author, Allen Jones, will update it with a second edition when C# 2.0 is released in its final form.

A funny note: I brought this book with me to McDonalds and one of the girls working there asked me after seeing the cover, "Wow, that's a really thick cookbook! You must be a great cook...(pause)...Why are you eating here at McDonalds?"

Rating:
Summary: Excellent quick format
Review: This book remains at my fingertips at all times. It's perfect as a reference for those little problems which we, as programmers, face every day.

Some examples of problems which the book covers are:
- Prevent People from Decompiling Your Code
- Sort an Array or an ArrayList
- Store a Serializable Object to a File
- Instantiate an Object Using Reflection
- Synchronize the Execution of Multiple Threads
- Use XML Serialization with Custom Objects
- Apply Windows XP Control Styles
- Reuse Data with the ASP.NET Cache
- Show a Dynamic Print Preview
- Calculate the Size of a Directory
- Download a File over HTTP
- Communicate Using TCP
- Host a Remote Object in IIS
- Restrict Which Users Can Execute Your Code
- Create a Cryptographically Random Number
- Use an ActiveX Control in a .NET Client
- Create a Windows Service

This is only about 5% of what the book offers. If you've ever wondered how to do any of the above or have ever needed to reference a short snippet of code for any of the above then this book is for you. The code snippets are all full complete programs so there's no confusion as to what references were used.