I've actually signed up for a distance summer course for basic games programming in C#, I hope it gets me on the right track.

Originally posted by GreenChaos

 

No catch, you do have to change some files so that it's true c++ and not .net c++, but just google for that, there is a guide on how to do it.

 

 

And if the OP is still reading this, I've been a professional programmer for 16 years, and my advice is, put it to use. put it to use, put it to use, put it to use.

 

Start out with a very small goal, like Hello world, then stop reading about it and do it.  Then change it, play with it, work with it.
 
Then do another small project like reading and writing to a file. 

Read about it then put it to use. 

Trust me, the best way to learn is to use it, not read about it.  I've learned languages without ever reading one book about them.

After you have done a few small projects like that, skim over a book, but don't try to understand it all. Pick one thing, then use it in another project.

Rinse and repeat.

Some truly excellent advice.

Originally posted by hermitpaul

Apress' "Illustrated C#" is a book I'd recommend; straight to the point, easy to understand and covers all aspects of C#.

You and anyone else interested can get the C# 2008 update of the entire ebook for free through a Red Gate (A microsoft gold partner) promotion: 

Direct Download: http://downloads.red-gate.com/ebooks/DotNet/illustratedcsharp2008.zip

 EDIT: On a side note since these threads tend to die and resurrect every half year or so; this was an April 2009 offer. Not guranteed to be there forever.

Ah, thanks for that. If I ever need to have another look at it, that'll be great.

Microsoft seems to be offering quite a lot, though their software seems always to have been available through piracy, and it's nice for them to encourage people with free books, courses, software and the numerous competitions that've taken place over the years.

C# can help you get into ASP.NET, Silverlight (a promising tool to defeat the evils of Flash), XNA (Yay Xbox) and anything else .NET. I wouldn't call it a useless language at all! Certainly, you can use DirectX with C++ and do everything that C# can (I haven't tested this, could be false) but with C# you use less code. In my opinion it looks neater.

If you're good at finding out the bottlenecks in your programs and what causes them, you could easily create lovely games in C#. As someone said above, practice is better than simply reading a book; look into the different namespaces and see what the classes and methods do! Mess around with things and learn that way. A book is more of a guide and could never teach you everything that the language has to offer without drowning you in old age.

As the Beginner Developer Learning Center has been mentioned, make sure to take a look on the basic "Bits & Bytes" lessons, they are pretty sweet to get a hold on basic programming and problem solving.

msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner/bb308891.aspx

zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Originally posted by achellis

can anyone give me any advice on some books to learn from?

Actually, go all the way and get a Computer Science degree. It's the NEW high school diploma. Everyone's got one.

Problem is, software hasn't gotten any better. Wonder what's up with that...