Which book to start with??

Okay... I've got a variety of different books and tools to learn C# with. The problem is the one that is my FAVORITE is using an old rendition of the language (from 2002) and an old IDE. "Microsoft C# Game Programming for the Absolute Beginner"

My question is: is it harmful to use OLDER books to learn a language

Yes, I have newer books like "Teach yourself Visual C# 2005 in 24hrs" as well as videos from VisualStudio.Net and Prentiss Hall's book, but when it came to raw coding I found the former book more useful and more fun. But, am I gimping myself by not using the newer 2005 books

I've come to also notice that the newer books seem to focus a LOT more on working within Windows Apps, which I think is a bit counterproductive to actually learning the LANGUAGE. I've naturally come to work through about half of the 24hrs book and the visual studio.net videos and then gravitating to the older console app. manuals.

Any thoughts

Visual C#20

well its good to start from the base working onwards however you are best to use the latest and greatest as not only will it have updates and major changes but some methods would be obsolete if you chose to learn from older books - applying that to the new language version may not be supported however it is good to learn from the start working your way upwards so you have an idea of whats what and what's going on.

I personally would learn the latest and greatest as you are right in there and you wont have to hunt around for finding an alternative method which maybe obsolete which learning from an older book.

Totally agree with Ahmed. It is wrong to learn from old book because many things are changed in .NET 2.0. Try to find some better book then learning C# in 24 hours. If you can't find, why not go directly on msdn. There you will find good help and some great articles. Also search the web for some examples. Try to read as many as you can, and from every book you will learn someting. In none of them you will find everyting what you need. But know this, none of them will learn you to be a good programmer. Only real work and real projects will make you one.

How about Prentiss Halls':

Visual C#R 2005: How to Program, Second Edition

take a look at this:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx PostID=849534&SiteID=1