Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 platform

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1. Mafana0Nov 2010
   C# in Depth by Jon Skeet.

   Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform by Andrew Troelsen (there's a newer edition about .NET 4 which I haven't managed to read yet)

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2. wanorrisMay 2008
   ASP.NET MVC is pretty close to release, so I wouldn't be afraid of it. If you know Rails or Django, many of the same concepts will be applicable.

   Manning has an early access version of ASP.NET MVC in Action that may help you on the book front, but I can't vouch for it. Books for brand new technologies are always a tricky topic. Worst case, there's all sorts of info all over the blogosphere.

   The best general-purpose .Net book I have that the moment is Apress's immense Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform (Fourth Edition). It covers all the general C# and .Net stuff and also has all the new LINQ pieces, lambda expressions, etc.

   VS 2008 has some nice enhancements for web development, including some nice CSS debugging pieces that help you isolate where a bit of style is coming from and a decent JavaScript IDE with a debugger.

   For database access, you can use LINQ, NHibernate, or the (prerelease) Entity Framework. If you've worked with Hibernate on Java, NHibernate is an obvious choice. Otherwise, LINQ is pretty slick, and there's a ton of information out there on it.

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