I just got a VC .NET 2003 compiler and want to learn C# programming. What books would you recommend? I've been reading the book reviews on amazon.com and there appears to be a lot of good books -- or so the readers claim. I'm not at all interested in "C# for Dummies" -- anyone buying that book needs his/her head examined :rolleyes:

I've read dozens of C# and .NET books. The best, hands down, IMHO is Programming Microsoft Windows with C# by Petzold. It is focused on Windows Forms (desktop apps) rather than ASP.NET or ADO.NET, but that's a great place to begin. I no longer need it very often, but my copy is falling apart from use.

C Sharp for Dummies

"Programming in the Key of C#" is pretty good too, for getting the basics of the language itself. However, most of the examples, though the concepts are translatable to Windows Forms apps, are done with console apps.

With your experience, you don't need more than a good reference. I learned C# from "The C# Programming Language". That coupled with the material on MSDN is more than enough to get started with some serious programming.

i would suggest going to an actual book store such as "books-a-million" and looking at the various books they have.
you can read a but and determine which you like the best.
its better this way, because you can find a book you can understand, rather then what a person that learns differently finds easy to understand

You can do the same thing on Amazon (at least for many books). There is a feature that let's you browse a sample of the contents of the book. With the price of gas these days, I'd try that first... unless you can ride your bike to the bookstore!