Datasheet

Chapter 1: Getting Started

Suffice it to say that C# provides you with a robust object - oriented programming language and an

impressive set of tools to tackle almost any programming task. Whether you wish to develop desktop,

distributed, web, or mobile applications, C# can handle the task.

As you become familiar with C#, you will appreciate its relatively few keywords, its crisp syntax, and its

easy - to - use development environment. You ’ ll discover that pieces of programs you write in C# can be

reused in other programs. Finally, you might appreciate the fact that there are many job opportunities for

programmers who know C#. (In fact, in the writer ’ s locality as this text is being written, there are more

job openings for C# programmers than in any other language.)

Installing C#

If you have already purchased and installed Visual Studio 2008 and C#, you can skip this section. If you

haven ’ t installed C#, this section tells you how to download and install the C# Express version of Visual

Studio. C# Express is a modified version of C# that is available from Microsoft at no charge. While the

Express version of C# is missing some features found in the commercial version of Visual Studio, you

should be able to compile and run all the sample programs in this book using C# Express. Once you are

convinced that you should do all your development work in C# (and you will be), you can purchase the

full version of Visual Studio.

Downloading C# Express

At the time that this book is being written, you can go to: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en - us/

express/future/bb421473.aspx

to download C# Express. The web page looks similar to what is

shown in Figure 1 - 1 . As you can see if you look closely at the figure, the book was written using Visual

C# Express Edition Beta 2. (By the time you read this book, it is quite likely that the “ Beta 2 ” part of the

title will have changed.) Now click the IMG file link to download the file.

Figure 1 - 1

ISBN: 978-0-470-26129-3 I Title: Beginning C# 3.0 : An Introduction to Object Oriented Programming I SKU: 9785CH0009874