Murach’s C#, 8/e

This is the latest edition of our best-selling book that’s been training developers in C# since 2004. It focuses on how to develop professional Windows Forms applications with C#. But along the way, it teaches you the C# coding skills that you’ll use to develop any C# application, including desktop, web, or mobile apps.

Who this book is for

This book is for anyone who wants to learn the C# language. It works if…

• You’re new to programming
• You’re an experienced developer who’s new to C#.
• You’ve already read another C# book and still don’t know how to develop a real-world business application

Why this is the C# book that you should buy first

This is a great first book in C#, whether you’re a programming novice or an experienced programmer. Here are 5 reasons why that’s true.

#1:A FAST start

This book starts you off using all the best features of Visual Studio so you can begin productive work almost immediately. In fact, it has you create a simple business application in chapters 2 and 3 so you can see right away how C#, Visual Studio, and .NET work together.

#2:Object-oriented programming made clear

This book takes the mystery our of object-oriented programming (OOP) by showing how to work with realistic business objects such as products, customers, and invoices. This allows you to use OOP to create multi-tiered applications like the ones created by professional developers.

#3:Confidence in handling business requirements

Learning to use C# classes and OOP techniques isn’t enough. You also have to know how to code for the tasks that are required in most business applications.

That’s why this book builds on your skills in incremental steps to teach you how to validate data; handle numeric, date, and string data; work with loops, arrays, and collections; code methods and event handlers; handle exceptions; and work with files and databases.

#4:A solid grounding in database programming

Most business applications use a database. That’s why this book teaches you how to create applications that use EF Core or ADO.NET to work with a database. And it shows how LINQ allows you to use C# to query almost any data structure, not just databases.

#5:Real-world applications tie it all together

This book presents complete, non-trivial applications that illustrate what you need to know on the job. Studying applications like these is the key to mastering C# development.

What’s new in this edition

The skills for developing Windows Forms applications using C# haven’t changed much since the previous edition. Still, this book has been thoroughly updated to include coverage of the most helpful new features from the latest releases of C#, .NET, and Visual Studio.

What software you need for this book

To develop the Windows Forms applications presented in this book, you need the following:

Windows 10 version 1607 or later

Although .NET is cross-platform, you can’t use macOS or Linux to develop Windows Forms applications like the ones shown in this book. You have to have a Windows system.

Visual Studio Community 2022 or later

The Community edition of Visual Studio can be downloaded for free from Microsoft’s website. When you install it, you can also install all of the components that you need to work with this book, including:

• The C# language
• All .NET classes needed for desktop development
• A built-in database server called SQL Server Express LocalDB

Appendix A provides detailed installation instructions.

If you already have another edition of Visual Studio installed on your system, such as the Professional edition, you can use that if you prefer. Everything in our book will still work for you.