I'm always looking for new languages to learn, especially ones that might come up in my line of work - and C# is one I used to continually get asked if I knew, and I always had to say no.  Not that I will become an expert by any means after reading this book, but having some more background on it is certainly a step in the right direction! This book is designed to be a quick and easy guide for computer science students - so if you have 0 experience with programming, you might not want to start here. (Or at the very least teach yourself strings, loops, if/else on your own before jumping in. These are pretty simple concepts and I'm sure YouTube has some great intro videos out there.)  The first part of the book is on hardware, which the intro said you can skip and come back to.  Since I am working as a software engineer, I skimmed it to make sure it was all things I already knew before moving on.

The rest of the book contained a lot of code and I think it would have been better if I had a project to build and follow along with, but it definitely was a quick read and learn.  I'm not sure in the end that C# is something I want to pursue, but I liked how this book was put together and I'm sure it would be helpful to many CS students!

I received a free e-copy of this book from NetGalley in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

The author claims this book is or the “busy undergrad”; but to this reader it is not clear to whom this book is addressed.

The author starts where most beginning programming texts begin, defining simple concepts such as bits and bytes. He then moves to explaining how transistor work and how they are used to build simple logic gates (i.e. AND, OR, NOR, and NAND gates). He then moves into defining the difference between compilers, interpreters, and hybrid language systems.

From there he begins discussing classes, claiming, “One caution – this book does not cover some very basic programming constructs (built-in language features) like strings, for loops, while loops, if-else statements etc. because these are assumed to be easy enough for the reader to quickly learn by themselves through other resources.” Yet these are the basic building blocks from which programming solutions are actually built. To be fair, the author makes it clear that his purpose is to introduce the reader to Object-Oriented Programming (aka OOP), though it appears he wants to do this without the foundation needed to write complete programs. Doing so, it appears that the book is aimed at those who learned to program before the development of OOP in the eighties and nineties. These programmers will know about the basic building blocks of programming but not how to use them in an OOP setting. Sadly, many of us who learned programming in this era are nearing retirement age. The book comes 20-30 years too late. I will only give the book 2-stars.
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This review is based on a free electronic copy provided by the publisher for the purpose of creating this review as well as a Kindle book purchased on-line. The opinions expressed are mine alone.