Code Like a Pro in C#

This book is for programmers who already know an object-oriented language such as Java and want to reach a professional standard in C#. It assumes no prior C# experience and skips introductory material. Instead, readers work through an aging codebase written for .NET, modernizing it with current C# techniques, tools, and conventions. Along the way they cover unit testing, test-driven development, clean code principles, and the backend skills needed for layered applications, including querying and changing databases with LINQ and Entity Framework Core.

C# and the .NET platform power many critical business systems around the world, on desktop machines, in the cloud, and on Windows or Linux servers. Code for user-facing business software or data-heavy backend services should be efficient, clean, and fast. The hands-on, experience-based methods here are aimed at that goal.

The book is organized into six parts that follow the application's layers, from data access up to the controller layer. It opens with the fundamentals of C# and .NET and how .NET compiles code, then examines the legacy codebase, asks how poor its code really is, and addresses unmanaged resources. Later parts set up a project and database with Entity Framework Core, then move through test-driven development, dependency injection, object comparison, stubbing, generics, extension methods, streams, and abstract classes. The service layer covers reflection, mocks, runtime type checking, error handling, and IAsyncEnumerable with yield return. The final part deals with middleware, HTTP routing and responses, JSON serialization, and custom model binding.

The author, Jort Rodenburg, is a software engineer who has taught many courses on getting up to speed with C# and .NET. The print edition from Manning Publications includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats.