News

This page contains news of C# in Depth: new web site features, details of the book's progress, reviews etc. You can subscribe to it with a blog reader via its RSS feed.

C# in Depth ebook now available! (Thursday, April 03, 2008)

I'm hugely pleased to announce that C# in Depth is now available in finished form as an ebook. The hard copy will ship in about three weeks. Thanks to everyone who's been involved, particularly the folks from Manning, Eric Lippert (for both the tech review and the very kind comments!) and all the peer reviewers. Oh, and Holly for putting up with my lack of spare time over the last year :)

The work isn't over yet, of course... I've still got to write up the specification map on the book's web site, and I'll probably end up writing various articles for magazines etc for marketing purposes. Still, a very significant milestone!

I really hope to write another book at some point - but I think I'll be taking a few months off first...

Source code updated (Monday, March 24, 2008)

The source code has been updated to include a fix to the Range class in chapter 6. Also, the figures for chapter 11 (query expressions) have been included in an expanded form, beyond what is feasible for the printed book.

Got a query expression you find tricky to understand? Mail me and I'll try to translate it into a diagram.

Downloads now available (Friday, February 22, 2008)

I've finally put the source code from the book on the downloads page. Please kick the tyres and mail me if there any issues.

Proof reading (Thursday, February 21, 2008)

Just a quick note to say that I'm now proof reading the book, which is very exciting. It's amazing to see how listings come alive when the annotations are marked up properly, and the margin notes look fabulous.

It's all going very quickly at the moment - three chapters in the last three nights, which has left me somewhat exhausted. However, this means we're on target for a mid-March delivery of the e-book, with the hard copies being delivered in April.

Some of the content of the web site probably won't be fully finished by mid-March (especially as I keep expanding what I want to put on the site) but I never anticipated it being a case of "finishing" the site and then abandoning it, anyway.

Half way through copy edit and technical review (Sunday, January 27, 2008)

Good news! The first seven chapters (covering the introductory chapters and all of C# 2) have gone through copy edit and technical review. This doesn't mean they're ready to go to press, of course - they're being typeset, then I need to review the first typeset copy, request changes etc. However, it's definite progress. Fortunately Liz (my copy editor) and Eric (tech reviewer) are both being fabulous - it's going far more smoothly than I had expected.

In fact, the comments I'm getting back from Eric are so interesting that they've changed the contents of the web site somewhat. The section which used to be "Errata" is now "Notes". It will still contain errata when they crop up, but mostly it will be some added notes. Think of this as being a bit like a commentary track on a DVD; content which wouldn't make sense to include in the main body of the text, but which should still be of interest to readers.

The notes for chapter 1 are already up - I hope to do chapters 2 and 3 fairly soon, and gradually catch up over time. It's possible that I'll manage to do all the notes before the release of the book at the expense of the specification map, but I think that's a price worth paying.

Technical Reviewer: Eric Lippert (Sunday, January 06, 2008)

I'm delighted to be able to reveal the technical reviewer for C# in Depth: Eric Lippert. He's been working on the C# team since 2005 - there are very few people who know the details of C# better than he does, if any. Even before agreeing to be the reviewer, Eric had been incredibly helpful to me when it came to asking various intricate language questions.

If you haven't subscribed to his blog (follow the earlier link) you should really do so. If you're a regular reader of his, you'll appreciate how much it means to me to have a tech reviewer of his level of expertise. Speaking of his blog, it was only recently that I read his entry from 2004 on cargo cult programming. It's a great article, and this line caught me in particular:

Don't be a cargo cultist -- understand the meaning and purpose of every line of code before you try to change it.

Helping people to achieve that aim is pretty much the purpose of the book.

News page and RSS now working. (Sunday, December 30, 2007)

If you can read this, the first part of the C# in Depth web site to "go live" is working. The news page will now be the primary source of news on the progress of the book, new features on the web site, reviews etc. There's an RSS feed which should also be working.