Appendix B. C# Survival Guide for PerlNET Programmers

Although .NET was designed to work effectively with many programming languages, the new C# language plays a special role, designed from the ground up along with the .NET Framework. Thus C# enjoys the best match with the facilities of .NET. C# is an especially good language for the PerlNET programmer's toolkit, because its C-like syntax will be comfortable for Perl programmers, and PerlNET data types have been designed to match the C# data types. Also, since the current release of PerlNET does not allow you to do everything in Perl (for example, create your own interface), you will sometimes find it convenient to create C# components to work with your PerlNET programs.

This appendix is intended to get you up to speed on C# quickly. Naturally, we can provide only a basic introduction, and for more details you can consult any of the many books on C#. We especially recommend two titles from The Integrated .NET Series:

• Introduction to C# Using .NET for an introductory book focused on the C# language.

• Application Development Using C# and .NET for an intermediate book with a concise but quite complete treatment of C# and emphasis on the .NET Framework.