Just a quick question, really – I’d really like feedback to this one.
This morning I was reading Charlie Calvert’s blog, and saw a link to the preview of a C# 3 book by Bruce Eckel and Jamie King. I’ve downloaded it, and had a look – naturally interested in the competition (and with plenty of evidence that I’ve already finished my book and won’t be plagiarising!). At the same time, I’m also interested in some other C# books which are coming out or are already out – particularly Head First C#.
My question is – would my views on other C# books be interesting to you, dear readers? Obviously I’d have a somewhat different perspective on the matter to other people – but at the same time I think it’s clear that I’ll be somewhat biased. Any such reviews are bound to contain comparisons to my own way of approaching writing about C#. That could either be interesting, or it could be really annoying.
Thoughts welcome. Oh, and if by any chance any of the authors of other C# books are reading this post (unlikely, but hey…) – I’d love to hear your views on my book, whatever they happen to be.
Jon Skeet's coding blog 
Although I’m not particularly in the market for new C# books, your review of C# books (at least focusing on syntax) would be a great reference for people learning the language or looking to expand their knowledge.
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I would enjoy hearing the insight of anyone who I know to be deep into the language.
My biggest problem when go to buy books is that there’s no reliable way to judge their depth of subject.
Having you, or other (Eric L, etc) take a look and make a recommendation based on depth, means alot.
For example, I need to get a good dedicated LINQ book, but until I crack the cover (which is impractical in many cases), I’m buying a book based on reviews.
Typically the online reviewers don’t (in my opinion) know enough to give a review that I find useful.
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I write primarily in VB.Net.
I have however read your thoughts on C# 4 with great interest.
I think it is very reasonable to suppose that anyone who has read 1 or more articles from your site or posts in the newsgroups, and found them to be informative ( as I have), would view your thoughts on any C# book to be valuable.
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Sure, go ahead and post your impressions!
PS: I noticed that the reply count on your RSS feed is usually very much out of date compared to the number of actual replies (0 vs 5 right now). But I guess that’s something the hosting company ought to fix.
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Chris: I didn’t think the RSS feed itself showed the comments. Are you sure it’s not just that your feedreader fetched the page when there weren’t any comments?
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The RSS feed doesn’t show the comments but it does show the current comment count next to the headline. I don’t think that’s something that my RSS reader (Feed Demon) does on its own because there are other feeds that never show a comment count at all.
“Are you sure it’s not just that your feedreader fetched the page when there weren’t any comments?”
Absolutely. When I refresh your feed, then go directly from a headline that shows a comment count of X to the page of the blog entry, I always see (X + Y | Y > 0) comments for a recent entry. Apparently the headline with the comment count is updated with a significant delay, like a day or so.
Actually, it’s not a terribly important issue at all, at least to me since I’m aware of it! I just wanted to mention it since readers who only look at the comment count might miss many comments completely.
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Reviewing these books on your blog would be informative and appreciated. You have a unique perspective given your depth of knowledge in C# and experience writing your own book. I would not worry about seeming biased or derogatory towards works not your own. People come to your blog to read your take on things; it would be a different situation if you posted criticism (good or bad) on Amazon or another neutral forum.
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A book that Ive bought but not yet read is “C#3.0 design patterns” (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527730/).
The book is structured to take you through all the GoF design patterns ordered by C#3.0 functionality. I.e. the patterns become more dependent on new language functionality as the book progresses.
Not yet read it so wont comment any further. Looking forward to the upcoming weeks commute though…
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I think the discrepancy between the comment count displayed and the # of comments has something to do with the msmvps.com site. I noticed this on my blog as well… Maybe a replication problem.
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