and repeat operations.
● IV: Classes– These lessons deal with classes. They explain how to create and use classes and how to use more advanced class features such as generics and operator overloading.
● V: System Interactions– These lessons explain ways in which a program can interact with the operating system by reading and writing files and by generating printouts.
● VI: Windows Apps– These sections explain how you can build Windows Store and Windows Phone apps.
● VII: Specialized Topics– These lessons introduce topics that don't fit well in the other sections. They explain how to localize programs for different parts of the world, how to build simple database programs, and how to use Language Integrated Query (LINQ) to manipulate data in objects and databases.
What You Need to Use This Book
To get the most out of this book, you need to install Visual Studio and C#. You don't need any fancy version of Visual Studio or C# Professional Edition. In fact, Visual Studio Professional and the other full-featured versions don't really add all that much that you're likely to want to use for a long time. Mostly they add support for performing unit tests, managing test cases, profiling code, building code libraries, and performing other tasks that are more useful for programming teams than they are for individuals.
To work through this book, the Community Edition should be good enough. (And it's free!)
NOTE
In previous versions of Visual Studio, the free “starter” version was called Visual Studio Express Edition. Microsoft seems to be changing the name to Visual Studio Community Edition. It hasn't changed the name everywhere and some small differences exist between the earlier editions and the latest one, but you should be able to work with either version.
The following list describes some links that you may find useful for learning about and installing different Visual Studio products:
● Compare Visual Studio 2015 Offerings: www.visualstudio.com/products/compare-visual-studio-2015-products-vs.aspx
● Visual Studio homepage: msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio
● Visual C# resources: msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/hh341490.aspx
● Visual Studio free products page: www.visualstudio.com/products/free-developer-offers-vs
● Visual Studio Express: www.visualstudio.com/products/visual-studio-express-vs.aspx
● Visual Studio Downloads: www.visualstudio.com/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs.aspx
● C# Express Edition homepage: www.microsoft.com/express/vcsharp
At a minimum, visit the Visual Studio Express Edition page (www.visualstudio.com/products/visual-studio-express-vs) and download and install Visual Studio Community Edition.
Running any version of Visual Studio will require that you have a reasonably fast, modern computer with a large hard disk and lots of memory. For example, I'm fairly happy running my Intel Core 2 system at 1.60 GHz with 8 GB of memory and a huge 1 TB hard drive. (That's a lot more disk space than necessary but disk is relatively cheap.)
Conventions
To help you get the most from the text and keep track of what's happening, we've used several conventions throughout the book.
Splendid Sidebars
Sidebars such as this one contain additional information and side topics.
WARNING
Boxes like this one hold important, not-to-be-missed information that is directly relevant to the surrounding text.
NOTE
Notes such as this contain tips, hints, tricks, and asides to the current discussion. They are offset and placed in italics like this.
As for styles in the text:
● New terms and important words are highlighted when they are introduced.
● Keyboard strokes look like this: Ctrl+A.
● Code, URLs, and e-mail addresses within the text are shown in monofont type as in x = 10, www.vb-helper.com, and [email protected].
● Code snippets are shown in a monofont type like this.
The code editor in Visual Studio provides a rich color scheme to indicate various parts of code syntax such as variables, comments, and C# keywords. That's a great tool to help you learn language features in the editor and to help prevent mistakes as you code, but the colors don't show up in the book.
Source Code
As you work through the examples in this book, you may choose either to type in all the code manually or to use the source code files that accompany the book. (I like to type in the code because it helps me focus on it so I get a better understanding.)
Many of the examples show only the code that is relevant to the current topic and may be missing some of the extra details that you need to make the example work properly. If you get stuck, e-mail me or download the solution from the book's web page.
All of the source code used in this book is available for download on the book's website. Any updates to the code will be posted there.
Errata
The Wrox editors and I make every effort to ensure that there are no errors in the text or in the code. However, no one is perfect, and mistakes do occur. If you find an error in one of our books, like a spelling mistake or faulty piece of code, we would be very grateful for your feedback. By sending in errata you may save another reader hours of frustration and at the same time you will be helping us provide even higher quality information.
To find the errata page for this book, go to www.wrox.com and locate the title using the Search box or one of the title lists. Then, on the book details page, click on the Errata link. On this page you can view all errata that have been submitted for this book and posted by Wrox editors. A complete book list including links to each book's errata is also available at www.wrox.com/misc-pages/booklist.shtml.
If you don't spot “your” error on the Book Errata page, go to www.wrox.com/contact/techsupport.shtml and
