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

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.

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.

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.

Love it, great to learn and easy to follow

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

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!