Part 4: Core topics
Introduction
Core topics are 'intermediate-level' topics that are beyond the basic class features and operator functions. Topics covered in this part include arrays, exception handling, event handling (which is quite different in C# from Java), reflection, multi-threaded programming, file I/O and the .NET collection classes.
I suggest that particular attention is paid to Chapter 14, where I shall introduce the idea of delegates. Delegates are special types which encapsulate methods, and are used in C# events and multi-threaded programming.
Chapters 16 - 18 (reflection, multi-threaded programming, and file I/O) are written in a more 'how-to' style. I will not cover the basics (such as what reflection is, what multi-threading is, and what the difference is between a binary file and a text file, etc). Rather, I will emphasize how to perform the different operations (how to read from a text file, how to get the type name of an object during runtime) using .NET's rich framework API. For these chapters, there are few new concepts to learn, simply new classes to be acquainted with.
Chapter 19 introduces several useful classes of the C# collection API by giving coded examples showing how they can be used. Though not important, this chapter serves as a helpful reference when using an array is not good enough.
Strictly speaking, the last four chapters deal with topics not really related to the C# language itself, but more with the functionality provided by the .NET BCL. I have decided to cover them in this book because you will need to know about these subjects eventually if you are to become a C# developer (and also to make my book thicker ; ).