App Model Recommendations

The C# Player’s Guide focuses on C# programming, rather than the various app models that you can use to build different types of applications. A solid understanding of C# is extremely important to even begin working in any of those app models, and each could be its own book (or several).

So here are my recommendations for your next steps into an app model.

Web Development

There are a lot of technologies wrapped up in the bundle of technologies known as ASP.NET. The best starting point that I’m personally familiar with is Microsoft’s official documentation.

You may also find that learning some JavaScript, HTML, and CSS can be helpful, and the JavaScript book Eloquent JavaScript is a very good choice for the JavaScript side. John Duckett’s HTML and CSS book is really well designed and very useful. For better or worse, it is very introductory. Somebody who has been programming for a while will probably get bored because of the slow pace, but if web development is an entirely new world for you, this may be a fantastic beginning point.

Desktop Development

There are several flavors of desktop development that you can use with C#.

For Windows Forms, I recommend Microsoft’s documentation as a starting point, though I did write a detailed blog post about some other books you might consider with WinForms.

For Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Microsoft’s documentation is a good starting point, but I also really liked WPF 4.5 Unleashed and would probably recommend that book over the documentation.

I’m not personally very familiar with Universal Windows Platform (UWP), but the little I do know, I learned through Microsoft’s documentation.

Mobile App Development

Xamarin Forms is the primary C# mobile app development tool, and Microsoft’s documentation is the best source for learning that I’m aware of.

Game Development

There are a lot of ways to make games in C#.

Unity evokes strong feelings in people–some love it and some hate it. But it is so popular that it cannot be ignored. I have not gone through any Unity books or other online material in depth, but often find myself digging through Unity’s tutorials and manual for various reasons. They’re a good starting point.

If MonoGame is more your style (you have more control, but also have more to build yourself) then I might suggest my own MonoGame tutorials.

Got a Suggestion?

If you are aware of a resource for learning one of these app models that you think would be worth adding, let me know and I’ll add them in.