# looking for book recomendations



## Xue Sheng (Aug 11, 2010)

I am looking for a couple of good books on 

C Sharp and MS.Net.

And they need to be for a beginner.

I took programming in college, C, C++, Java, VB, FORTRAN, Basic (yup, I'm old) but that was many many years ago (see FORTRAN and basic) and pretty much all I remember is what a global constant is.

I'm thinking abut leaving hardware, network and virus stuff behind and going teh programming and or web root. I came from web actually (HTML - yup, I'm old)


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## rlobrecht (Aug 11, 2010)

If Java and HTML existed when you were in college, you can't be that old.

I find programming books to really be a personal choice.  I've had friends and colleagues recommend books which I really hated.  The best thing I've found is to actually look through books.  Head to your local brick n mortar bookstore, and flip through them.

For what it's worth, I've had good luck with the Wrox Professional and Programmer to Programmer books and the Head First books.


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## Xue Sheng (Aug 11, 2010)

rlobrecht said:


> If Java and HTML existed when you were in college, you can't be that old.


 
Don't let that fool you, I took those later... when I started you have to think punch cards  

Java did not exist when I started college and when I studied HTML it was all done by a text editor when I first learned it.



rlobrecht said:


> I find programming books to really be a personal choice. I've had friends and colleagues recommend books which I really hated. The best thing I've found is to actually look through books. Head to your local brick n mortar bookstore, and flip through them.
> 
> For what it's worth, I've had good luck with the Wrox Professional and Programmer to Programmer books and the Head First books.


 
Thanks


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## dbell (Aug 12, 2010)

One of my two Ph.Ds is in Comp Sci, and I would have to say many of the books out there on programming have a "mission", and that mission is not always the mission you may have.  I have to agree with rlobrecht and go to a brick and mortar book store that has a good computer books section and flip through the books to find what you can learn from.

I too started with html by handing coding via VI (a text editor on Unix, and some Windblows machines).  (I was one of the original 9 authors of the RFC for HTML code....), so I know what you mean about being old school....

That said, if you are wanting to focus on web coding, look into XML as well as C Sharp.  .net is strong these days too, although I don't like it, or many of the concepts within it.  Get strong on CSS as well.  I would recommend that you acquire Dreamweaver from Adobe (formally of Macromedia) for helping you do your web coding, great tool.  (From the former CIO of Macromedia...)


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## dancingalone (Aug 12, 2010)

The Murach line of books is quite solid even though the C# books are slightly outdated now.  Still if you are a beginner to the platform, they should be fine.  

I like their books because their example projects are tasks you actually want to accomplish in the workplace.  None of these silly game examples or 'dog', 'cat', and 'mouse' classes.


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## KenpoVzla (Aug 14, 2010)

I used to really like the Deitel books when I was in college. Then again some people hate them, so give or take...maybe because they're not geeky geeky books? who knows...

I would recommend getting ONE solid programming fundamentals book, best in C. Learn basics and good practices there, the rest you can find off good tutorials on the web. Depends on how far you want to take this of course.


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## tahuti (Aug 17, 2010)

Instead of recommending specific book, try to get to safari oreilly and look through legally scanned books. By default safari is paid service, but some public libraries allow you to access it and read from home.
Now how much you like to read book on screen is different topic. 
Note it is not only O'Reilly books scanned, there are SAMS, QUE, No Starch, Prentice Hall, Microsoft, New Riders, ....


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