Microsoft Visual C# is a powerful but simple language aimed primarily at developers creating applications by using the Microsoft .NET Framework. It inherits many of the best features of C++ and Microsoft Visual Basic but few of the inconsistencies and anachronisms, resulting in a cleaner and more logical language. With the advent of C# 2.0 in 2005, several important new features were added to the language, including generics, iterators, and anonymous methods. C# 3.0, available as part of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, adds further features, such as extension methods, lambda expressions, and, most famously of all, the Language Integrated Query facility, or LINQ. The development environment provided by Visual Studio 2008 makes these powerful features easy to use, and the many new wizards and enhance-ments included in Visual Studio 2008 can greatly improve your productivity as a developer.

The aim of this book is to teach you the fundamentals of programming with C# by using Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework version 3.5. You will learn the features of the C# language, and then use them to build applications running on the Microsoft Windows oper-ating system. By the time you complete this book, you will have a thorough understanding of C# and will have used it to build Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) applications, access Microsoft SQL Server databases, develop ASP.NET Web applications, and build and consume a Windows Communication Foundation service.