The C# Player's Guide (5th Edition)

I wanted to find my way into programming and C# so badly, but I just wasn't finding my way with the Microsoft Learn courses, or Codecademy, or any of the other methods I tried. Everything was either extremely dull, or felt incomplete. My copy of The C# Player's Guide arrived about 2 months ago, and I kid you not, I have spent between 30 minutes to 2+ hours every single day working through it (I think I spent a solid 6 hours on a lazy Sunday once). I wake up thinking about this book, and I go to bed thinking about it. The content and challenges are constantly running through my mind, and I can actually see the improvement happening day by day. The book has a ton of challenges that require you to use the knowledge you gained from each chapter, and each chapter builds upon previous ones. There is no hand-holding here, as seen with many of the courses you find online. These challenges require you to actually learn and understand the content, and by doing each challenge, you are doing what matters most: actually programming something. It will be hard, and you will struggle, but that's okay because that's where the real learning happens. If you have the ability to do so, I highly recommend you join the community. The author has gathered a wonderful community of people, primarily on Discord, who are constantly providing feedback and assistance to others. They don't just give you the answer and move on, however, they work with you to make sure you move forward with confidence, as long as you're willing to put in the work. I've seen these people spend hours of their time, for free by the way, helping people understand a concept they were stuck on. The author himself responds to many of the questions, and often goes WAY out of his way to help people get through things they're struggling with. This isn't just a book, either. The author has also created a website that has plenty of additional content, and he has a YouTube channel with detailed videos going through many of the book's challenges. And, if you join the Discord, you will find tons of additional context and reference material in there. All of that said, if you like TTRPGs or RPGs in general, you're going to love this book that much more. The story and the "leveling up" concept really add another layer to the learning process that helps keep things fun, and they have given me something to hold onto during the more difficult parts of the book.

The book is clear, logical, focused, and very easy to follow. This is the first time I've been able to write some script without having to follow a youtube tutorial that does nothing to explain any of the logic used to come to a solution. It presents some challenges, and I'm able to use everything I've learned within a chapter (plus some critical thinking) to achieve the goal without help or too much headache. Some of the challenges are a little cheeky and will ask you to incorporate elements that are related to what you just learned but wasn't explicitly mentioned. Some might not like that, but it seriously wasn't too hard to just take an extra step to look into some documentation and figure it out.

Over the years I have bought a lot of different programming books in an attempt to quickly pick up a language that I needed to know for work or for a personal project. Many times, I will get about 40-60% through these books and put them down, never to pick them back up. Sometimes I learned enough to get going from just that amount of reading; other times I have to seek out additional resources to supplement the book's lessons. The C# Player's Guide is the first programming book I completed cover to cover. The content is organized into a series of "Levels" in the form of something akin to a role playing game; each level has one or more challenges and knowledge checks for you to test what you learned in that level. Completing these awards you experience points (XP) that you can track on a page in the front of the book to gamify your progress. This feature by itself helps encourage you to stick with the content. However, even if that gamification was missing, the content here is so good that I felt compelled to keep going, even when the rest of life and work caused interruptions and disruptions to my schedule. The challenges will measure your comprehension as it continues to layer new concepts over previously introduced ones, but in a way that is never frustrating. Instead, for each challenge you'll feel like you have an idea of how to get started and will just need a bit of tinkering around to get the result you need. From this tinkering comes the real lessons and insights that make the language stick. The author also has an active presence in the Discord server that accompanies this book, offering reviews of your code as you work on the challenges and answering any questions you have with detailed, thoughtful responses. If you are looking to learn C# from scratch (or if you are looking to break into object-oriented programming and thinking about using this as your first resource), you would be hard pressed to find a better book than this.

Easy to understand and fun to read

Was advertised as new but when received a few pages were damaged in the inside,still readable so I kept it.

I've tried other programming books before. I'll make it a good chunk of the way through and give up. With this book, it's been different. The challenges are difficult, but not to the point of frustration. I also really enjoy the story element of the challenges. It helped give me the perspective that I am creating something to solve a problem rather than just doing an exercise. The biggest break through happened on The Defense of Consolas exercise from Level 8. I was to the point where I was about to give up. I took a break, then went back and got through each objective step by step. For me it was the most satisfying program of the book, even though it is one of the earlier ones. This gave me the confidence to say to myself that I am capable of doing this and will get through the book. This book inspired me to sign up for a software engineering program. I've been a firefighter for over 15 years. I'm thankful that RB Whitaker created a book good enough to help me step out of my comfort zone and shoot for something. Thank you sir!

I've been making my way through this book for a month now, and I can confidently say that I've learning and retaining all of the information that I learn. The book is written in a very friendly manner. Every subject is clearly explained, and with a lot of different examples. Every "level" or chapter covers a specific topic, or subject in C#. Every level has challenges part way, and/or at the end of the level. These challenges are laid out to build upon what you've learned in the level, as well as reinforcing skills you learn in previous levels. The book's challenges take you through a very well crafted narrative adventure through a fictional land, where you use your 'powers of programming' to solve the troubles of its citizens, it's very engaging, and for those who are into fantasy games, or fantasy settings, it's a very fun additive to learning. The book encourages learning and engagement by suppling an 'XP tracker' which you can start checking off as you complete challenges, thus 'leveling up' your programming skills, it is a very fun way to keep motivated.

I rarely, if ever, write a review, but I felt it necessary for this. I've been pleasantly surprised by how well written this book is. The author took great care in writing a book to help someone learn C#, rather than just a reference manual. I've learned more from this book than I have in college level courses. The author explains things in plain English, with the assumption that the reader knows little about C#. The mini-exercises at the end of each chapter provide a great way to practice and build on fundamental concepts. The author's explanation of stack/heap and OOP design concepts put into context the more complicated aspects of C# coding. If you are an amateur coder or someone who stares at code and wonders what it all means, this is a great learning resource. The author obviously cared more about teaching the reader, rather than demonstrating their superior coding knowledge. If you are looking to take your C# knowledge to the next level, this is a great starting point. Take it from me, take the time to step through each chapter and complete the exercises and you'll be pleasantly surprised. Thanks for a great book!

Been a programmer for almost a decade, but this really walks through basic concepts to advanced levels as a nice and handy reference when I need it with very good examples (especially for game development).

Ottimo libro. Lo sto utilizzando per rispolverare il mio C#. Molto leggero e facile da seguire, forse non proprio indicato per chi ha delle solide basi o è a livello intermedio / avanzato ma per chi è agli inizi o vuole fare un riapasso l'ho trovato eccellente. Non tratta visual studio e quindi non aspettatevi interfaccia utente, parla solo di può C# .net e quindi applicazioni a consol. Consigliatissimo

Ich habe tatsächlich nichts negatives über das Buch zu berichten. Von Anfang an wird alles klar und verständlich erklärt und gut strukturiert mit vielen Praxisbeispielen beigebracht. Es werden absolut keine Vorkenntnisse mit Programmieren oder wirklich detailliertes Computerwissen vorrausgesetzt, und man kann relativ schnell von "Hab noch nie auch nur eine Zeile Code geschrieben" zu einem Punkt kommen, wo man seine eigenen kleinen Spiele und Anwendungen von 0 mit sehr wenig Hilfestellung schreibt. Auch ausserhalb der Seiten selbst ist das Buch top: es gibt eine zugehörige Website mit zusätzlichen, kostenlosen Resourcen, Beispiellösungen für jede Übung im Buch, und einen zugehörigen Discord Server in dem der Author selbst, sowie viele andere Mitlernende ständig Fragen beantworten, Lösungen reviewen, mit Problemen helfen und allgemein über alles was mit Programmieren und C# zu tun hat reden. Super bonus. Einziges "Manko" (nicht wirklich, aber für manche sicherlich): Das Buch gibt es nur auf Englisch, eine deutsche Übersetzung gibt es nicht und wird es vorraussichtlich auch nicht geben. Aber wer programmieren möchte sollte ohnehin keine Probleme mit der englischen Sprache haben ;)

J'ai découvert le code avec ce livre. Le livre m'a servi de base. Mais pour faire mes jeux android 2D assez simples il m'a fallu apprendre de moi même, et m'aider des IA. J'ai eu des difficultés sur certaines parties et j'ai trouvé que beaucoup ne m'ont pas servi à mes objectifs personnels.

The book is very good. I am far from completing it but so far it has been very helpful. The challenges are very well implemented.