Learning c# programming with Unity by Alex Okita. Buy or no buy?

Hello,

I am new to Unity and am looking for a book to help me get started.
I stumbled upon "learning C# programming with Unity" By Alex Okita and found that the reviews are pretty good. I was thinking of buying it however my only concern is that it was created a few years ago so im guessing that it was written with an older version of unity in mind. With all the unity updates since then, is it still worth while buying the book?

Thanks a bunch.

 

It was created with 4.3 in mind so no doubt the UI sections would be outdated. It does look like a good book though, maybe you can contact the author to see if he's going to update it for Unity 5. Unity 5 though is now quite ready for a book - all the new features and APIs are not in place for a book.

For that reason I suggest the Learn area of this site and help documentation that gets downloaded with Unity.

That said - it you don't know how to program at all - I recommend a book like the book you asked about here. You need to knw how to program and once you understand more you'll be able to figure out out to do the new UI (not much programming there, mostly configuration in the editor) and other new Unity functions better.

 

If you've finished the learn section and still need more then a book might help. If not, start with the learn section.

 

Unity 5 is a different animal so I agree with @goat

No, and there's probably better ways to learn c#. Do you have a purpose for wanting to learn unity as well? If so, studying the sample projects could be useful.

 

Exactly. Why pay for an out-of-date C# book when you can get a current C# book for free?

http://www.robmiles.com/c-yellow-book/

 

I think this is a fantastic book that is definitely worth buying and adding to your collection. This book will teach you about important C# scripting concepts for example, Classes, Delegates, Events and so much more. It really covers the fundamentals and advanced ideas of coding in an easy to understand straightforward manner. I have learned a lot from owning this book and I code in Unity 5 all day.

 

this site is pretty awesome
http://www.dotnetperls.com/

 

Why are people still buying books to learn things

You know the internet exists, thats free and updated in real time

 

Same reason people buy assets, it's part of the dream. But the best way to learn to swim, get in the water.

 

I'd check out youtube, i've found some decent c# tutorials pertaining to unity on there.

 

Yeah, about 90% of the things I've ever wanted or needed to learn how to do in Unity have a tutorial on Youtube.

Especially considering Unity themselves put a bunch of really nice tutorials on their channel for the basics, then other people handle the more advanced stuff.

 

Books can have some advantages over free internet resources.

• Books are normally structured in a beginning to end way
• Books are normally finished by the time you buy them
• Books normally have a consistient approach throughout the entire book
• Books often have publishers and a minimum quality level
• Books go a lot of places the internet can't

I'm not saying books are superior to the internet, or vice versa. Just that there are cases where books make a lot of sense.

 

• Well Organized tutorials like the ones published by Unity have a similar structure, especially ones that are in a series by Unity or another good channel. Same with the written documentation for Unity.
• Books are also usually out of date by the time they are published given how fast Unity changes, so they are finished, but at the same time can be dated and even irrelevant not long after they come out. I have a Maya 2014 book that I bought for college that was irrelevant the very next year because Autodesk revamped Maya in 2015. Internet resources can be corrected and updated instantly.
• If an online resource is written/filmed by the same person, ditto.
• Yeah, but it seems like in at least Unity's case, that is true for their documentation as well.
• Internet goes way more places that books can't, due to the limitations of space-time, like the internet can have moving pictures that show you how to do things rather than just tell you, and can be updated instantly if a mistake is found, and can even be accompanied by sample projects that let you see what the finished product should look like. Books just can't do that.

Of course, maybe some people are just used to books and learn better from them, but personally, I have an easier time with pictures and video and examples over just text alone. I don't think I even opened that Maya 2014 book when I was taking that Maya class

 

Not attempting to argue. Frankly I don't really care how people choose to learn.

Simply pointing out that there are advantages to traditional paper and print that mean it's still relevant in some situations.

 

I haven't found anything yet that even come close to that book. I do recommend learning the basics with the c# yellow book first.

 

For learning C# I really like tutorials point, MSDN, Design Patterns, and Game Programming Patterns.

 

The only person selling the dream is the individual suggesting people shouldn't practice formal study of the tools and topic. That is offensive to me frankly. Read, take notes, study each topic that supports the last and gain incremental understanding.

A YouTube tutorial that teaches you how to use events but not delegates hurts you. A Youtube tutorial that teaches you what lambda expressions are but not what anonymous functions are hurts you. A Youtuber who does things that "work" but doesn't follow MSDN naming conventions and doesn't consider best practices makes you a worse programmer because it'll be harder to read other code better programmers who learned formally.

I'm wasting my time, but if you want to really learn this stuff go to college and if you can't do that be your own professor. Hold yourself accountable and try to understand everything you see and do, and try to avoid using scripts you don't understand: you and I (and everyone else learning) are already building on top of one "black box" we couldn't build ourselves, Unity itself, and it already does enough for you on its own.

I do not usually agree with BoredMormon but if you're new to computer programming trying to learn online without a table of contents and a stepwise structure is going to waste a lot of your time.

The book is boring, but I promise you'll get more out of each page. The book study will make the online study more productive because it will improve your language skills.

I have that book, I can recommend it even though it's out of date. The Unity-specific bits that are out of date aren't relevant to the C# bits. Looking up and learning how to update that code yourself will make you better at Unity at the same time.

 

I'm programming all day at work and usually get some work done on my hobby projects, when time allows it. When I want to learn anything extra concerning programming, concepts, new tech, etc. I welcome a break from the blue light that is my screen, and just go down on the couch with a book to study.

 

Bolded the real problem.

 

I wonder what kind of physics and maths one needs to create games like 2D side scrollers or 3.5D sidescrollers?

 

Wonder no longer: https://unity3d.com/learn

 

This is easily the best book hands down and its totally free better than Robert Miles and others and better than any paid book on Amazon, was written by combined University lecturers in post Soviet Countries. Then translated from Russian to English its an absolute gem. Teaches how to program how to think like a programmer while using C#

http://www.introprogramming.info/wp...Programming-with-CSharp-Nakov-eBook-v2013.pdf

 

You aren't selling me here. The former Soviets aren't exactly the paragons of technological progress. And translations are typically a bad idea.

It might be a very good book. Just not for those reasons.

 

ehh.. The Antonov Mriya would like to have a word with you I mean the Americans have nothing like it. Not even to this day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya

I think first man in space and first satellite in space before even Britain and America should constitute technological and scientific? or Aerospace Engineering is not all that?. How about all the scientific inventors? Russian physicists etc?

How about Kaspersky the greatest most legendary Anti Virus in the world and its Russian? even better than ESET NOD 32? that ought to say something yeah?

Or how about this? featured on popularmechanics the RS-28 Sarmat

http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a23547/russias-new-icbm-could-wipe-out-texas/

The Americans have nothing like it, hardly a Banana republic we are dealing with here I reckon?

The book is also recommended by American stackexchange programming veterans. I highly doubt some of the best programmers in the world would be recommending a failed book. I have been reading this book and its better than all the fancy American books on Amazon that I tried. Infact Rob Miles C# yellowbook is a superior free book than all the so called college texts on Amazon for $300 USD etc

Lets hear what experienced programmers here have to say about the book

http://www.introprogramming.info/wp...Programming-with-CSharp-Nakov-eBook-v2013.pdf

if experienced professionals here say its bad then ok I will agree its bad. But from what I have been reading its captivated me and one of the few books that have me addicted.

 

You probably would have been better to link this list.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_developed_in_Russia

A big plane is not exactly an impressive feat in video game circles.

 

Just got this one in the mail. https://www.amazon.com/C-Depth-3rd-Jon-Skeet/dp/161729134X

(C# in depth with Jon Skeet)

The book in the thread title (Alex Okita) is a good start especially for a brand new programmer, but I would describe it as "goofy." Some of it's explanations aren't super clear when it comes to advanced topics, so I would recommend using it in tandem with a C#-specific book. Still, it's worth using because it covers a bunch of Unity-specific techniques you might find useful.

Your sources don't need to be up to date, they just need to be new enough to include the language features Unity can take advantage of. (Unity uses an older version of C# than what is ultimately available) So far any Unity-specific version-to-version differences you'll probably be able to just fill in the gaps since Unity covers those changes in depth in posts they make that will turn up on Google. Also, you probably will not run into that stuff early on, or it'll be trivial stuff like the move from Application.Load to SceneManager, which will just cause you to go learn how cool SceneManager is anyway.

PS lol at you guys, who cares.

 

I bought this same book and "the gaps" to be filled in are causing me a bit of distress. In one of the chapters he explains how Monodevelop pulls up popups for different libraries when prompted by using the keyword "using.". But since we're in visual studio it doesn't happen when I try it. I have been able to find some of the libraries under UnityEditor.dll rather than the UnityEngine.dll he refers too but still no popups. I really want to get this to work (so far just reading the book for conceptual understanding since the code doesn't work the same). I tried to load int he UnityEngine.dll but no libraries show up under it when I expand in the Solution Explorer/object browser. Is there a way to fix this in visual studio? I feel like I'm missing a connection here in my setup or something to make this work. I have Visual Studio 2017 as my default editor in Unity preferences. Please help!

 

The easiest might be switching your default editor to monodevelop in the Unity preferences. VS2017 is a solid editor (imo, far better than monodevelop) but if you need to follow step by step it may be simpler to use the same editor discussed in the book.

The project when opened in VS should already include the UnityEngine and Editor dll references. You may not be able to browse them directly in the solution window (but you should be able to browse in the class browser).

I personally use Resharper with a different version of VS, so I can't help you on the details of stock VS2017, hopefully someone can shed some light on the other specifics.

 

Sounds like the connection between Unity and Visual Studio isn't working properly. If restarting the applications isn't working then you might try reinstalling Unity.

When it comes to installing Visual Studio my recommendation is to never let the Unity installer do it for you but to do it yourself. Start by downloading Visual Studio Community, run the installer for it, select "Game Development", unselect "Install Unity" on the side bar, and let it install. After that install Unity. This process has always been successful for me.

 

That book is the best, its well written. I love it.