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Show HN: Wrote a Book – C# 5 First Look

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Congrats on the book release! Sounds really cool. And don't worry about the Xamarin.Mac release, it's based on MonoMac so the work you put into this section of your book wasn't wasted. :)

Glad to hear it ... definitely planning on digging into Xamarin.Mac soon :)

Thanks for covering Mono. Does it also cover other alt.NET technology?

No, the book doesn't really focus on individual libraries (EF, MVC, etc.) as much as it just tries to focus on the language itself. I wanted to drive home the point that if you use C#, you can target all the major platforms :)

That's great. Focusing on specific MSFT technologies or frameworks is a waste of time. For one, they're not very good. And two, you never know how soon it'll be deprecated.

On the other hand, C# the language is not terrible.

MVC seems pretty good.

Indeed ... and it is also open source and works on Mono, should you choose to host it on linux/apache - http://aspnetwebstack.codeplex.com/

The C# community is trying. It's hard to separate C# the language from C# the Microsoft product. People just have it in their minds that you're stuck with the MS tools and libraries. Things like Nancy and Albacore is where C# should be headed.

How does Nancy (which I had never heard) compare to something like ServiceStack?

On a sidenote, C# blog entry URLs always confuse me for a second because default rewriting rules strip out the “#”.

Awesome - congrats :) Packt is a really good company too IMO.

Congrats! Looks interesting, and at a pretty decent price. I've been meaning to update my C# knowledge (as a non-.NET developer) and your book has piqued my interest even more.

What exactly is 'PacktLib access to the book' included in the print version as opposed to just the eBook?

Thanks!

PacktLib is their online repository of titles, similar to Safari Books Online - http://packtlib.packtpub.com/

The projects in the book look like actually-useful case studies. Yay!

Would this be the book to get if I want to develop desktop apps for Windows?. Does C# 5 support Win 7 , XP ?

Language-wise, C# 5 comes with .NET 4.5, which is supported on Windows 7, but not XP. You can probably use Mono 3.0 on XP to write C# 5 though.

You could start with C# 4.0 / .NET 4.0 which is supported on XP.

.NET 3.5 has a much higher install-penetration than .NET 4.0 though, so if you're really concerned with making installations hassle-free, you might want to consider starting with C# 3.0 / .NET 3.5 (using Visual Studio 2010).

Also, I would suggest starting with Windows Forms (WinForms) instead of WPF because it's super simple and easy to wrap your head around. You can get something built very quickly with WinForms. In WPF you'll be spending at least a month studying before you start to feel confident.

Actually, I temporarily forgot (it was in the book :P ) ... you can actually target .NET 4 and still use C# 5 if you use the Async Targeting Pack for Visual Studio 2012 - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=2957...

I've been thinking about writing a book in my spare time. Can you provide some details on your experiences?

Sure, this will be my 3rd published title (http://amazon.com/author/joelmartinez), though first as the sole author. From first contact with the publisher to today was about six months, actual writing time was approximately 3-4 months, and the rest of the time was the editing process (still have to review/approve the final laid-out PDF tonight, actually).

Process-wise, the first step is to have a solid outline and target audience in mind. That will inform the book's style and keep you on track as you put the proverbial pen to paper. When working on an individual chapter, I like to write most of it longhand. That forces me to rewrite it as I transcribe it to the computer and I find the end-result requires many fewer iterations to complete when I do that. Aside from all that, it's all the same things any author will deal with, things like writer's block, etc. Just make sure you are prepared to really focus on getting it done once you decide to write it ... because there's nothing worse than starting a project like this, and then letting it languish. It will always be on the back of your mind and you won't be able to enjoy relaxation time until you get back to it.

Anyways, hope that helped, happy to answer any other questions you might have :)

Congrats on the release. I just preordered a copy of your ebook. After writing articles on some networks, I've decided to start working on a monotouch ebook. Your tips of your process will come in handy.

Thanks so much!

Great news on the book, we definitely need to start seeing more books out there on Mono/Xamarin tech. Hopefully we can help people understand what a great opportunity C# can be when you embrace it :)

When you say 3-4 months of writing time, was that full time with the book your main focus? Or done on the side?

On the side ... I work full time as a mobile application developer. Of course, I had to stop all other side-projects. I usually (against my better judgement) work on at least 2 other things on the side at any given moment, but this book took all of my extracurricular attention.

Really cool--congratulations!

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