C# is one of the most versatile programming language and brings in ease of programming offered by languages like Java, and has roots in the C family of languages including C and C++. C# is type-safe, object oriented and runs in the .Net Framework run-time, and C# code is compiled into IL (intermediate language) that conforms to CLI specifications.
Talking a bit more about C#, it is fast becoming the preferred language for beginners to learn programming in general, as well as to code for many products that come from the house of Microsoft. You can use C# to build database applications, web services, client-server applications, games, mobile apps and much more.
One can learn C Sharp basic concepts in an hour by following a good C# tutorial or spend hours struggling with low-quality learning material. To make it easier for everyone to find the best C# tutorial, I have listed down many tutorials and learning resources, each labeled by complexity and delivery media.
Complexity of every tutorial and resource is marked as beginner, intermediate or advanced level C# tutorials. Delivery media is marked either as video, interactive online, downloadable pdf or an online guided course. Most of the C sharp resources and tutorials mentioned in this article are free but some of the paid courses are too good to be excluded from this list.
One of the courses that you cannot miss (Have a look for sure, 80% discount) is: C# Basics for Beginners: Learn C# Fundamentals by Coding – This course includes high quality, bit sized videos with real world coding examples and exercises. A perfect choice if you are a beginner programmer.
Another one to check before you read this article further is: Learn to Code by Making Games - Complete C# Unity Developer – Great option if you want to learn C# and games development with Unity game engine. You will learn to create 7 2D and 3D games in this course. The course is already taken by over 200K students and is highly rated by students.
Let us look at the 20 Best C# Tutorials and resources to learn C#, starting with Microsoft Virtual Academy -
Straight from the house of Microsoft, the creators of C#, Microsoft Virtual Academy is the best place for an absolute beginner to learn C# programming. They have 24+ training episodes, covering depths and breadths of C#. Bob Tabor, the instructor, provides practical guidance around using C# for mobile apps, client apps, video games and other programming endeavors.
You get slide presentations, video tutorials, and a free visual studio community development environment to code and organize your C# projects. Bob Tabor provides many samples to make you understand simple and complicated techniques of C# programming.
At the minimum, you will get to do the below –
Creating your first C# program;Working with projects, code files, and solutionsUnderstanding different data types, variables, if decision statement, operators, expressions, statements, for iteration statement, while loop, date and time and other basic programming fundamentals.Understanding and working with Classes, methods, accessibility modifiers, namespaces, .Net class library, collections, LINQ.Exceptions handling, events and event driven programming.
You can check out few other video C sharp Tutorials at VMA, like the one from Jerry Nixon and Daren May - Programming in C# Jump Start.
TutorialsPoint is one of the best free online learning resources out there in the wild. It has more than 20 million readers who run through 50 million pages every month to learn programming.
Their C# tutorials are divided into three categories: C# Basic Tutorial, advanced C# tutorials and useful resource that include Q&A, quick guides and discussion groups. The basic section covers more about environment setup, data types, variables, constants, operators, loops, methods, arrays, structure, enums, classes, namespaces, file I/O and much more. On the advanced section, it covers reflection, delegates, events, unsafe codes, multithreading, indexers etc. and much more.
Tutorialspiont also provides Tutor Connect, it is their free platform where students can connect with tutors and get guidance on any topic. Another great thing from the house of Tutorialspoint is a mobile app for C# tutorials, you can download it free and start learning on the go.
Simpliv is one of the biggest player in the online education market and hosts more than 10, 000 courses with over 5 million students from across the globe. Simpliv hosts some of the best C# Tutorials available online, and each course includes coding sessions, video lectures and exercises to hone your skills on C# programming. The content of every course is very clearly outlined so that you know what you are supposed to learn prior to subscribing for the course.
Some of the popular and bestselling courses include –
C# Basics for Beginners: Learn C# Fundamentals by Coding – This course includes high quality, bit sized videos with real word coding examples and exercise. A perfect choice if you are a beginner programmer.
Learn to Code by Making Games - Complete C# Unity Developer – This one for you if you want to learn C# and games development with Unity. The will learn to create 7 2D and 3D games in this course. The course is already taken by over 200K students and is highly rated.
Design Patterns in C# and .NET – This course is for the experienced developers who want to hone their programming skills in C# to build enterprise grade applications, mobile games and other software applications.
Pluralsight hosts many courses on different programming topics. When it comes to C#, the course labeled C# fundamentals with C# 5.0 is one of the best available anywhere on the internet. It covers depths of C# and focuses on fundamentals of C# on.Net platform, for beginner programmers.
Scott Allen, the author of the tutorial, has 15 years of experience in the field of commercial software development. His step by step course will give you good grasp on the C# syntax, use of classes, writing properties and methods, generating and handling events, object-oriented programming paradigm, and hands on experience with tools like Visual Studio.
This website is for everyone who wishes to learn C# programming language. You don’t need to download anything, all you need to do is to choose any chapter you want to begin with and follow the instructions given, the online interactive shell is available to write the code and see the output live.
The basic tutorial starts with an introduction, “Hello, World!” where you write the simple function in the editor on the left and see the output in the console on the right side of the window. The rest of the chapters discuss essential topics like variables and types, arrays, lists, dictionaries, methods, strings, loops, class properties, and more.
Codementor is a different animal altogether, it hosts tutorials to provide solutions to specific C# programming problems. Whether you’re just a beginner, intermediate level or an expert programmer, you will find ample tutorials on Codementor to sharpen your C# skills.
They offer a live one-on-one tutorship with an expert mentor, which essentially means that you do not need to spend hours or days trying to solve a specific problem in C#, rather you can find the solution with help of Codementor’s expert developers.
Codementor also offers few beginners tutorials and useful learning guides to help you get started. These resources can expand your knowledge in C#. Some of their tutorials are C# Tips that Improve Code Efficiency and Productivity and Quick Intro to MSBuild Projects.
Everyone can code is the theme of SoloLearn. Though it offers paid courses but C# course is free of cost and offers interactive learning material in text format followed by quizzes. There are total of 69 lessons and 199 quizzes to sharpen your C# skills.
Various topics covered include methods, classes, arrays, encapsulation, polymorphism, exceptions, generics, loops, conditional statements, variables and everything else you need to know about C#.
What I like about this course is interactive code editor where you can write custom code, and in parallel, check the output on your mobile device. Cool, huh! You can also participate in Forums on Sololearn to share knowledge and ask questions to fellow learners.
C# station is a community site for everyone interested to learn about C# for .Net based applications, it hosts many articles, links to other best C# tutorials and learning resources. The articles are meant to cover the specific C# problems and provide guidance around various programming topics like what is new in C#, reading and writing to files, introduction to strongly typed data sets, assertions with .Net etc. and many more.
Tutorials on the other hand cover step by step instructions to start learning C sharp programming, these are meant for beginners and include sample code and line by line explanation of the code snippets used.
The third section includes many links to the external websites and useful resources, all in all a good place to visit on regular basis to discover everything about C#, the only thing I don’t like about this website is too many ads that frustrate you at times.
C-sharpcorner is one of the most popular communities of C# developers who learn, share, ask questions, provide answers and interact with other C# programmers across the globe. This website contains tutorials and guides that cover every aspect of C# including visual C# programming, Windows Forms Controls using C#, WPF controls using C#, SilverLight programming using C# and everything else you would ever need to know about C#.
The prerequisite is to install either Visual C# 2010 Express or MonoDevelop which is required to write your C# code. The popularity of this website can be gauged from the fact that it has 2,468 articles, 1,519 blogs, 80 videos, 68 resources, and many news articles about C# programming language.
Very comprehensive and covers depths of programming in C#. This one is the course for you if like to go step by step and in a well-organized manner, without missing out on anything. This free C# tutorial covers anything and everything about C# including basic environment setup, C# and .Net version history, classes, variables, data type, keywords, interfaces, operators, ternary operator, switch, while loop, do-while loop, for loop, struct, enum, string builder, multi-dimensional array, jagged array, collections like hashtable, queue, stack, sorted List and Array List, working with Files, I/O stream, delegates, events, generics, partial classes, anonymous method, nullable type, LINQ, func, action, predicate, dynamic type, object initializer and much more.
This is the .Net and C# learning in browser from Microsoft and is organized in total of 20 lessons. It is not a very thorough and in-depth tutorial, but a quick guide to run through the basics of C# programming.
The instructor explains the sample code used for and provides additional background information of the language. Some of the topics covered by the instructor includes command line parameters, arrays, properties, libraries, other C# basics and some of the advanced topics as mentioned below -
Defining and calling methods, objects, classes, scope and accessibility modifiersNamespaces, LINQ and encapsulationHow and when about exceptions handlingPatterns and antipatternsTesting and troubleshooting the code
You also have option to run the code samples live in the browser, edit the code and see the output right there. This tutorial is not meant for creating and learning GUI based applications like web Forms or windows forms etc.
Like Udemy, Linda also hosts tutorials and courses for many programming language. Talking specifically about C# tutorials, the quality and variety of C# tutorials on this website is exceptional. The link above takes you to the C# beginners video course from Gerry O’ Brien, this video course is around 3hrs and 16m in length and is viewed around 1 million times, fantastic, isn’t it?
This is not the only course on Lynda, there are other courses that cover intermediate and advanced level concepts around C# as well, some of the popular courses include C# design patterns, C# algorithms and there are many more. You need to register for trial version of Lynda.com to go through their tutorials and courses.
This is another website I recommend for learning c#, in here RB Whitaker lists over 25 C# tutorials but states that you do not need to take them all. So, if you are a fast mover and need to understand the basics, then tutorials 1-17 are for you. After 17, there are tutorials around more specific topics like tutorials #23, which is on generics and tutorial no #2 which is on error handling.
Some of the key aspects covered in basic tutorials include installation, writing the first C# program, working with math, loops and decision making, polymorphism, inheritance and much more
A complete playlist here on the YouTube from Brackeys.com, and a fantastic one indeed, to learn the depths of C# programming. The link above refers you to the Youtube video tutorial that covers the basics of C sharp, but there are many other related C# learning video tutorials from Brackeys.com. This YouTube tutorial is liked by more than 7K students and is viewed around 1 million times.
The tutor talks about why C#, what are the uses of C#, what is console application, the IDE to develop C# programs, installation and setup on Mac and PC and then creation of your first project, so pretty much basic. But if you are already familiar with al this, you can skip past to the other videos on the playlist that cover further topics to learn C# programming.
This is a free tutorial website which teaches you everything about C# programming. Complete C# Tutorial contains 17 sessions that guide you from learning the most basic concepts to polymorphism, File I/O, Delegates and Events and much more.
They also have step-by-step pictorial guide and programming exercises at the end of each chapter which helps in practice. Apart from the C# basics, the website lists tutorials on related technologies to help you build complete application, these tutorials are on topics ranging from Entity Framework6, ADO.Net, Razor, SQL query, CSS and more.
Diploma in C# Programming is a free online course published by Channel9 to learn C# and covers the basics of C# programming using the Visual Studio Express IDE from Microsoft.
This tutorial focuses on using C# programming to create .Net applications. The end to end course spans for around 10-15 hours, including final assessment, followed by certification.
Now we are getting into Games programming, this tutorial on Coursera is highly rated by students with overall rating of 4.7 out of 5 and covers games development for iOS, Mac, OS X, Android, Windows and other platforms.
Author starts off with topics like why C# is a great option for developing games, how to develop games using C#, use of open source MonoGame framework, visual studio, XNA and much more.
This computer course is an introduction to Visual C# .NET programming and can be taken even if you have no clue about programming. You don’t have to buy any software for this course as you can use the free version of Visual Studio from Microsoft.
There’s no need to sign up or register either. You simply have to click the given tutorial links on this website to begin your C# learning journey. The tutorials come mainly in text but are supported with visuals.
If you are looking forward to creating ASP>Net applications using C#, this is a great place to start. They offer 30+ hours of video instruction, dozens of assessment questions, coding challenges and solutions, cheat sheets, and enabling closed captioning.
This is another thorough tutorial on C# and covers all aspects. The website offers to download the whole tutorial in PDF format for around $10. The online reading is free of cost though.
The tutorials in PDF format allow you to learn wherever you are, online or offline, with the use of your computer, tablet, or mobile phone. The document is nicely formatted, and the chapters are in order. Unlike the PDF format, the online-based tutorial isl free.
Conclusion
There are many C# learning resources online in the form of interactive tutorials, eBooks, PDFs, Videos and text format. The best way to begin your journey of C# training is to figure out the great tutorial or course and then follow it with full focus.