Yeah... ugh. I was unaware of that use of the comma operator. Before posting my ignorance of it, I looked up the comma operator in C#, but didn't find that usage. Thanks for the "pointer". ;-)

Well, there is this curious item: BlockHolder[,]:confused:

Everyone pontificates about lofty and complicated concepts such as declarative programming, boxing, garbage collection, IDL, delegates, generics, etc. But I like your bold use of some very simple and perfectly legal constructs. Too bad the VisStudio compiler abhors this common contruct: itemDups /= 0; :omg:

Perhaps the answer to what is "work / life balance" is, "Gee, here I am at the end of my life and I wish I'd spent more time at play." Ironically, as developers, we want our work to be play. The problem is all the bean counters and project managers.

Those books are good recommendations. Anything by Richter is a good bet. Also get Effective C# by Bill Wagner, Addison-Wesley, $40. 50 advanced topics with concise mundane treatment. No stupid jokes or silly pictures.