The Sixth Edition in Early 2026
My last blog post was about nine months ago, and said that the sixth edition would be out no sooner than November of 2025.
Now that it is November of 2025, it’s way past time for an update: Probably January or February of 2026.
I’m working through some adjustments to the challenges and want to take the necessary time to get feedback from early access readers. I don’t want to release it too soon and regret it.
I’ve been shooting for November because it is when C# 14 arrives (here in about nine days, during .NET Conf). There’s just a bit too much to do to feel comfortable with the thought that it will be done in November or December.
So my current best guess is January or February of 2026, but I’ll post an update as we get closer.
I’ve been very happy with the general state and progress of the sixth edition.
Nominally, the reason for doing an update is because C# itself has changed. Indeed, the fifth edition is C# 10, so it is missing C# 11, 12, 13, and, very soon, 14 features. The C# language designers are fantastic at avoiding breaking changes. Everything in the fifth edition is still perfectly valid today. But there are enough new tools available that a new update is clearly justified.
(As a side note, when I wrote the first edition, I thought the language updates would be rare and minor. Microsoft put things into overdrive. They put out an update every year in November, which is why the book is “behind” by 3, soon to be 4, language versions, even though it really isn’t that old. I’ve decided my goal shouldn’t be to update the book for every yearly update. I use expansions for that.)
But there are two other reasons to do an update.
First, with Discord, I’m constantly interacting with readers, so I see the parts of the book that are confusing or unclear, whether that’s sentences, paragraphs, or entire chapters. And I’m getting lots of practice explaining the concepts when people ask questions. So a second, big reason to update the book is that I’ve learned the weak points and want to fix them, and have learned a lot myself, both in terms of C# and in terms of teaching. I’d venture that there’s at least a 5-to-1 ratio of changes that are about explaining the material better vs. new C# content.
The single biggest area for this is in the first half of Part 2, as the purpose and fundamentals of object-oriented programming are described and explored. I had a reader tell me once, I’ve been through all of Part 2, and feel like I understand the mechanics of defining a class. But I’m not convinced. I don’t think I’ll keep using objects once I’m done with the book.” And while a reader can do whatever works for them, if I’ve failed to convey the purpose of objects… that’s a pretty big thing I’ve failed at. (In my defense, I’ve only heard this once. I think most readers get it. But I want to remove all doubt in people’s minds about objects and classes. Sure, there are other options and techniques you can use, but objects and classes are the main tool for building and maintaining larger programs. Unfortunately, until you start building larger programs, it isn’t always so clear.
Similarly, I’ve seen a lot of people struggle with the design parts of programming in C#. I want to write a software design book eventually, because it’s too big of a topic to try to squeeze into this book. However, I want people to feel like they’ve got at least some basic tools for designing their classes.
So Part 2, especially the first half, is significantly different in the sixth edition than it was before.
The second reason is that I’ve been fine-tuning the challenges to fit the storyline better.
When I chose the title The C# Player’s Guide, I intentionally and firmly tried to place the book into the game-related world. Not in the sense that this book is about game dev (though you do make a lot of little games as you work through the book, you can obviously use C# to make games, and a very high percentage of my readers are trying to get better at C# so they know what they’re doing in Unity, Godot, or possibly MonoGame).
I think, even in the first edition, I talked about how I see programming as a game itself. It’s like a challenging MMO RPG sandbox game.
But other than using game-related examples in many places in the book, I was too scared to really embrace the game related aspects in the first three editions, and I occasionally heard from readers that they had hoped for… more.
In the fourth edition, I decided that I should let the book be what I had always imagined it being. Embrace the game aspects fully. Make it feel like you’re playing an RPG as you learn C#. The fourth edition was the single biggest change to the book since the beginning, and I think readers have erally liked it.
The fifth edition was among the smallest updates, mostly just getting things updated to the new version of C#, and tweaking a few things here and there.
While I tried to embrace the RPG elements with the fourth and fifth editions, I secretly felt it wasn’t quite where I wanted it yet. I sort of pretended it was probably “good enough.” (And, if I’m being honest, it is; the fifth edition is fantastic, there’s just always room for improvement.)
But a few years ago, I had a reader succictly state the exact thought that was haunting my internally. He said something like this:
I love the storyline and the challenges. Everything here is so amazing. However, I do have one small complaint. Sometimes, I feel like the challenge is a side quest. Like I’ll stop fighting the Uncoded One and go help some random person do some random thing. Which is totally fine, except that then when we get back to the Uncoded One, the challenge skips ahead as if a bunch of things have already happened. In some spots, I felt like the main quest advanced without me, while I was “wasting time” doing side quests.
In my defense, coming up with challenges are already hard. Requiring challenges that (a) aren’t too hard nor too easy, (b) cover the stuff you’ve got to get hands-on experience with without extra complexity, (c) aren’t boring, and then, to top it off, (d) tie into the story and advance it appropriately and (e) create a cohesive storyline and self-consistent universe/world without adding hundreds of pages of world building… well… it’s just a lot to need to address. It’s why nobody else is writing books like this. I think all of this make the book easily two to five times harder to write without significantly increasing the revenue, and you need an author, publisher, and editor that all believe in the concept.
So the last big change is some significant changes to the storyline of the book to make it richer and better.
Overall, the sixth edition has ended up being a relatively signifcant change. Bigger than I had initially imagined or expected.
At the same time, it stays true to the core concepts brought in with the fourth edition (and what I had wanted it to be since the very beginning), but turns all of that up to 11.
So that’s what’s been going on in RB Land this year.
Now to answer a couple of things that I know current and soon-to-be readers are thinking.
Crap. I just bought the book. I should have waited.
Relax.
First, there’s still something like three months before the new edition is out. You might be done with the book by then. You didn’t make a mistake. The fifth edition is fantastic, and, honestly, still represents the best version of this book. The sixth edition still has a lot of rough edges.
I’m gonna need to buy an updated copy when the sixth edition is out, aren’t I?
No, you won’t.
I’ve been very open about getting people updates when the new version comes out. If you paid for the fifth edition on Amazon or Gumroad, where I sell it, I’m committed to getting you a digital PDF version of the sixth edition when it is available for free. I’ll send an email out via Gumroad when the time is right, as well as post here on the blog. If you’ve given Gumroad a valid email address, you should see it when it comes through. If not, you’ll need to pay closer attention yourself (I’ll make a big deal out of it both here and on Discord) so you can know when the time is right.
But I don’t want people to feel like they need to wait to get the sixth edition, nor do I want people to feel like they’ve got to go with the “lesser” version of the book. You’ll get both.
Naturally, I can’t do physical updates of physical books. I wish I could. But you’ll still get the PDF version.
What’s all this about PDFs? Why isn’t it EPUB?
Yeah… I get asked about EPUB a lot. I’d love to support it, but, for reasons I’m happy to discuss, but in another post, EPUB doesn’t just naturally happen with my current workflow. I’m interested in changing the workflow, but this is a different book than most, and it requires a workflow that is different than most, which means the typical workflows authors use just doesn’t cut it. I will eventually need to build my own tooling to support this, if I want to get EPUB or MOBI formats going. (And a bunch of other features like syntax highlighting for the samples, color options, etc.) But building custom tooling takes a lot of time. I’ve started on this probably five times now, but getting the next version of the book out has always been the priority.
So… PDF is the only option right now, and will be for the short and medium term. In the long term, I’m interested in figuring out how to get EPUB in there as well.
So should I wait to get the sixth edition then?
The answer depends on you.
A lot of people are excited to jump in, and if you wait three months to get the sixth edition, a lot of that excitement might fade. I don’t want that for you. Strike while the iron is hot. Make hay while the sun shines. Jump in while the enthusiasm is there.
As I said already, I’ll get you the sixth edition in PDF form when it is good and ready, so you don’t exactly need to pick and choose. You’ll get both.
The one situation where I’d maybe suggest waiting is if you’re not sure you’re ready to jump in yet, and are just considering your options. Once the sixth edition is out, it will be the preferred edition (naturally), and if you feel like you’ve got some time to spare before starting, then waiting is totally reasonable.
Also, if you’re one of those people (like me) that very much prefers a physical, printed copy, it’s important to remember that the free upgrade is PDF only. If that’s a big deal to you, then… maybe it is justified to wait.
Is it really going to be three more months, then?
There are two aspects I’ll mention here.
First, the January/February timeframe is a guess, not a promise.
In February, I might update it and say, “It’s going to be March.” Or maybe I’ll feel like things are in great shape and publish the book a week early on Christmas!
It is definitely subject to change, so don’t make firm plans based on that particular date.
I’ll also mention that the sixth edition is already available in Early Access on Gumroad: https://rbwhitaker.gumroad.com/l/cspg6. So if you want the PDF version instead of the printed version, you always have the option to just jump into that today.
I’ll mention that the Early Access version is rougher than the fifth edition. That’s the point of Early Access, so no surprises there.
But I think I’m about two weeks away from feeling like the sixth edition might be worth recommending to most people, given the tradeoffs. (Right now, I’m hesitant to say that. The fifth edition has a lot going for it, and the sixth edition has some gaps in the challenges that I’m working to close.)
So, you don’t need to wait until February if you’re willing to tolerate a bit of churn in the book as I update it. (I update the book on Gumroad every week, usually on Monday evening in the United States, for anybody watching the hours and minutes.)
Anyway… that’s a lot of words to say that the sixth edition is getting closer and closer, but is still a few months away. Stay tuned for more updates.