FAQs

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

NeonStalker — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:01:11 GMT

Gingerprince:
Here`s a link to ROB MILES Free YELLOW C# BOOK in PDF format

This is a legitimate download from his own site.

Aimed at Absolute beginners but anybody should give it a look!

http://www.robmiles.com/c-yellow-book/

Enjoy

Ginge

I would like to say that I am reading this right now, and it is the most helpful guide/tutorial/book I have read yet. It tells you everything you need to know to make a program in C#, and is a good book for any beginners to read before they look into XNA.
I am still looking into buying a book on XNA 3.0 sometime soon to get the full experience, but so far this free ebook by Rob Miles has helped me understand and learn the C# language.

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

Dustin Bennett — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:26:22 GMT

I learned from CampElmXNA. It teaches both C# and XNA.

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

Rolson — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:09:32 GMT

I have also learned a lot from the 2D and 3D tutorials. They are a lot of fun. After learning the basics you can go into more detailed projects under the extra credit section of the tutorials.

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

ShadowyCore — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:13:59 GMT

Coming from VB .NET, I learned C# when I wanted to use XNA. I just followed the 2D and 3D Getting Started tutorials (here), and it was through these that I learned the C# language. Now I won't go back to VB =)

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

Fabian Viking — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:39:56 GMT

You can copy the links from my link page.
http://forums.xna.com/forums/p/35782/206405.aspx#206405

I will delete the links when your'e done and add a link to this page instead
Edit: BTW when you are done you are welcome to delete the thread, no point in keeping it..

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

Melon Bread — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 03:55:32 GMT

Thank you for all of the resources. ^_^

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

Connor McLeod — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:05:55 GMT

A good website is www.functionx.com/csharp/. Really good tutorials and explains the basic concepts of programming in general.

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

David Amador — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:36:07 GMT

James Silva's book is also very good for a 2D approach. I have it and recommend it

Building XNA 2.0 Games: A Practical Guide for Independent Game Development

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

DS9490 — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:46:43 GMT

Since I've not read any other programing books except microsoft visual c# 2008 by john sharp I don't have that much to recomend except the fact that this book is great! I'm a rookie to programing however this book teaches you the basics of the language and .net framework. This book covers parts of c# from learning how to write out and code variables, to querying information in a data base, then this is the book for you! The only set back is the fact its 666 pages of bordom. However it's done it for me!

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

Jcoaster2008 — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:51:36 GMT

I would highly recommend Head First C#. I've been using it for the past couple of weeks, and it is very visually awesome, with cartoons, pictures, and all sorts of fun projects and stuff.

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

Gingerprince — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:52:24 GMT

Thanks to `Intruder` and `William Decker` .

I`ve downloaded the Rob Miles free C# book and printed off. It is not aimed at XNA specifically but it is a very good introduction to C# (the best I`ve found).
If your a total beginner in C# I would recommend reading this and keeping it for future reference.

Rob Miles also has a book specifically on XNA programming (again for total beginners) : -

Microsoft Gamestudio 2.0 : Learn Programming Now. (link below at Amazon)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Programming-Microsoft-Studio-Express-PRO-Developer/dp/0735625220/ref=pd_bbs_sr_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199897096&sr=8-6

This is a complete beginners hold your hands book.

You can download the samples from the book from Microsoft (big download 190meg or so) :-

http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/companion/9780735625228/default.aspx

Robs own website link below :-

http://verysillygames.com/learn-programming-now-book/

You can download the first two chapters from here to get a feel for the book.

Finally,as well as the above I fully recommend the 2D Video Tutorial on this site . Link below : -

http://creators.xna.com/en-GB/education/gettingstarted

It took me a couple of weekends to work through these (at my slow and child disturbed pace) but now I`ve ripped the
code apart and changed it around for my own projects.

And of coarse you can always ask in the forums here - and you usually get a quick reply!

Cheers

Gingerprince

ps. The XNA book is specifically aimed at XNA 2.0. However as far as I`m aware there should be know problems with the samples.They can be converted within XNA 3.0 if there is a problem.And the syntax `should` be the same.

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

Gingerprince — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 11:29:54 GMT

Here`s a link to ROB MILES Free YELLOW C# BOOK in PDF format

This is a legitimate download from his own site.

Aimed at Absolute beginners but anybody should give it a look!

http://www.robmiles.com/c-yellow-book/

Enjoy

Ginge

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

Sean James — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:24:24 GMT

http://www.innovativegames.net/blog/game-engine-tutorial

At the time of this posting, it's a 10 part series on game engine development, including physics, terrain, cameras, etc, with more on the way.

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

ObscurCaucasian — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 05:23:10 GMT

The C# Books I have used are: Head First C# - Very good first book on programming and OOP in general. Written in an easy to read and follow manor, not to mention it steps you through the process of making a few basic games (not XNA based). C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Framework - A little more advanced but goes into details of the .NET Framework and the CIL. I highly recommend both of these, the first can be skipped if you have OOP experience.

Re: What are the recommended books and sites for learning C#?

Sm4kt4rd — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 17:45:56 GMT

Well, I am still quite new to programming, only 2 years of experience from college in VB and C++. I have been learning C# along the way also, and have been using XNA since 1.0 Refresh days. Here are the books I have, in no particular order, with a few comments/opinions from someone still new to programming:

Professional XNA Programming by Benjamin Nitschke: The first XNA book I bought. While it is probably a very valuable resource, for me (again this is a new programmer perspective) it was way over my head after the first few chapters (mainly because of using Agile Methodology and Unit Testing to create the games, something that was totally new to me with this book, and even after reading quite a bit about it, I would say I am still very uncomfortable with it).

Learn Programming Now XNA Game Studio 2.0 by Rob Miles: Very great introduction (again for noobs like me) to programming in C# and XNA.

Essential XNA Game Studio 2.0 Programming by Jim Perry and Allen Sherrod: Another great book in my opinion. I do not know that I would recommend it for a total beginner, but after I gained some knowledge and fundamental steps into XNA and C#, this book started to turn into my reference manual when I did not understand something.

Building XNA 2.0 Games by James Silva and John Sedlak: Have not completely read the book as of yet. I have gone through sporadically and read chapters that had information I was looking for. From the point of view of a developer and the steps taken to create his game, I find it a great read for myself. Would I recommend it? That would be a resounding yes, if you only read it for the tools developed (which was quite a good resource to read about) for the game, it is worth it.

XNA 2.0 Game Programming Recipes by Riemer Grootjans: Another I have only slightly started reading (still in the first 3 chapters). However, the very limited knowledge I now have of 3D game development, alot of that was solidified by using some of these recipes and his (Riemer's) tutorials online.

Visual C# 2008 Step by Step by John Sharp: Great book for learning C#.

Code Complete 2 by Steve McConnell: I will just quote what I read quite a bit about online in reference to this book, "A must have for software developers." Even though I am somewhat new to programming, the knowledge gained from reading about planning and refactoring was invaluable.

Those are a few of the books in my library that I though I should recommend to anyone on this site. Again, my comments are from someone still relatively new to programming and game development, so even though all of the books are probably worth their weight in educational value, I thought I would share my thoughts from a noob perspective.