I got this book because I wanted to learn to use DirectX with C# in a managed-code environment - exactly what this book attempts to address.

Unfortunately, my progress has been hampered from missing blocks of text in both the prose and code samples. The author introduces topics and moves on without completing them.

For example in Chapter 1, page 16, he introduces a prototype for a "public static Microsoft.DirectX.Matrix PerspectiveFovLH(...)" method. He explains the parameter list, and then moves on. On the next page, he gives a SetupCamera method which calls the aforementioned PerspectiveFovLH method and declares on page 18 that "we've got our triangle drawn now." Only we don't. The body of that function never got filled in. I didn't get past the next page before encountering a similar case.



The other problem may be a question of versioning, but there are frequent invocations of "Set[Something]" methods, such as a CustomerVertex.Positioned.SetPosition method, which doesn't actually exist in my environment. (Granted, I am using Framework 2.0 and not 1.1, also Visual Studio 2005 rather than 2003, but deprecated methods are usually supported for backwards compatibility. So, was it ever really there?) I managed to get around this by simpling assigning a value to the Position property.



Perhaps I could navigate a few typos and errors if the writing were more straightforward, but it doesn't help that the author's pedagogical approach is to confuse the reader with a few examples of code that doesn't work and then to say "let's examine why." The facts of how the methods and concepts are supposed to work need to be stated plainly from the outset.



Last but not least, I am left to languish in my frustration, because no means of contacting the author has been provided.