A neat little book, not too big and unwieldy. It assumes nothing and leads you from an overview of the .NET framework and compiling your first C# and VB.NET program. It describes the built in types and assemblies among other things of interest to understand before getting into the bulk of the book, which is a poker game.

The author uses this example to show how to produce a standalone application as well as a Web Service. It is all run from Visual Studio.NET and includes creating the projects and using the Visual Designer and debugger.

This book is not an in-depth look at .NET but shows enough to get you started and a bit more. I like the layout and not being padded out with great swathes of code it is easy to read and understand.

At over£30 it is expensive, but no more than many other books.