I’ve ranted about versioning before (and indeed in C# in Depth). I still believe that Microsoft didn’t do the world any favours when they introduced a relatively minor set of changes (just libraries, albeit important ones) with .NET 3.0 and a more major set of changes (languages, LINQ, core library improvements) with .NET 3.5. Using 2.5 and 3.0 would have made more sense, IMO. But never mind.
The fact is, people are confused about what version number applies to what. A number of people claim to be using C# 3.5 when they mean either C# 3.0 or .NET 3.5. (For a quick reference of what’s actually what, see my article on the issue.)
Okay, so far it’s the fault of Microsoft for being confusing and the fault of developers for not keeping up. Both of these are far more forgiveable in my view than being flat out wrong as many books are at the moment. I don’t believe this is any indication on the quality of the book itself (Accelerated C# 2008 is pretty good so far, for example) but I still think it’s pretty awful to make a title so confusing. So, here are some bad titles and others which use version numbers appropriately. (I’ve left out titles like Head First C# and C# in Depth which don’t specify version numbers.)
Bad
- Professional C# 2008 (Wrox)
- Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform (Apress) (only partly incorrect, of course)
- Murach’s C# 2008 (Mike Murach and Associates)
- Accelerated C# 2008 (Apress)
- Illustrated C# 2008 (Apress)
- Pro LINQ: Language Integrated Query in C# 2008 (APress)
- Pro ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008 (Apress) (again, only partially incorrect)
- Beginning C# 2008 (Apress)
- Beginning C# 2008 Databases (Apress)
Good
- C# 3.0 in a Nutshell (O’Reilly)
- Programming C# 3.0 (O’Reilly)
- C# 3.0 Cookbook (O’Reilly)
- C# 3.0 Design Patterns (O’Reilly)
- C# 3.0 Pocket Reference (O’Reilly)
- Pro C# with .NET 3.0 (Apress)
- Beginning C# 3.0 (Wrox)
- C# 3.0 Unleashed: With the .NET Framework 3.5 (Sams)
Okay
This is the “well, just about” list – because they’re referring to “Microsoft Visual C# 2008” instead of C# 2008, it’s referring to the IDE instead of the language. I think it’s better to name a book after the language instead of the tool you use to write in the language, personally…
- Beginning Microsoft Visual C# 2008 (Wrox)
- Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Step By Step (Microsoft)
- Programming Microsoft Visual C# 2008 (Microsoft)
- Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition: Build a Program Now! (Microsoft)
Notice a pattern? If anyone at Apress is reading this (unlikely, I know) – there’s no such thing as “C# 2008“.
Rant over for the moment. With any luck I might be able to finish reading Accelerated C# 2008 fairly soon, and give a proper book review.
