C# in a Nutshell by Peter Drayton
This is a concise introduction to the C# language and its syntax with brief tutorials on .NET types, and a large cross-reference of namespaces, types and members. Designed as a primary reference for daily use, it also includes background information on how to become productive quickly and goes to the source of the C# language and the APIs of the .NET Framework to present the content. Brief introductions to the language and .NET runtime offer the preparation needed for programming with the C# language, whose keywords and syntax are then detailed in subsequent chapters. The book also presents key namespaces and types of the .NET Framework base class library which provides much of the functionality and power of the language. Using C# examples, the .NET Framework covers each core area, including: strings; collections; XML; networking; input/output; serialization; assemblies; reflection; custom attributes; memory management; threading; integrating with Native DLLs; integrating with COM components; and diagnostics. It also covers language reference, plus syntax, XML documentation tags, naming and coding conventions, and the various C# development tools. Next, an extensive and quick reference to the API is presented, featuring the System namespace. Figures and tables present the main features of the namespace. For those looking create alternatives to Microsoft's implementation of the C# Programming Language and the Common Language Infrastructure as submitted to ECMA (an international standards organization), each element included in the ECMA submission is labelled. Finally, the entire reference is based on Version 1 of the .NET Framework and generated by tools written in the C# language itself.