New at .Net/C#

[Guest]

My programming experience is limited to some vbscript and WinBatch.

Where to start on learning C#? Do I need to work on .Net first?

TIA,

Lang

 

[Bob Johnson]

You would benefit from becoming clear on your objectives. If you just want
to write little more than scripts, then any intro level book will do. Given
such a lowly objective, you would then find everything way too difficult,
unintuitive, and gripe [at least to yourself] about how .NET is too hard
("because xyz was so much easier with WinBatch"). But if you want to become
a more serious programmer, then you will benefit from learning
object-oriented programming concepts, principles, and best practices - how
..NET utilizes and promotes such concepts, and finaly how you can use C# to
implement those principles and best practices in your applications.

-HTH

 

[Guest]

Bob,

Thanks for the response. To be honest, I'm not clear what my objectives
are... I write utility type programs in WB; small apps that don't require the
level of depth one can achieve with C#. And... our management is pushing us
to move to C#. I don't believe they appreciate the difference between WB and
C#.

That said, even for "simple" stuff in C#, I think one would stand a better
chance of comprehending what's going on if one starts "from the beginning."
So... I'm trying to ascertain if the beginning is .Net or not...

Thanks,

Lang

You would benefit from becoming clear on your objectives. If you just want
to write little more than scripts, then any intro level book will do. Given
such a lowly objective, you would then find everything way too difficult,
unintuitive, and gripe [at least to yourself] about how .NET is too hard
("because xyz was so much easier with WinBatch"). But if you want to become
a more serious programmer, then you will benefit from learning
object-oriented programming concepts, principles, and best practices - how
..NET utilizes and promotes such concepts, and finaly how you can use C# to
implement those principles and best practices in your applications.

-HTH

My programming experience is limited to some vbscript and WinBatch.

Where to start on learning C#? Do I need to work on .Net first?

TIA,

Lang

 

[Bob Johnson]

IMO, "the beginning" is to grasp what the .NET framework is and how to
leverage it's massive base class library. The particular language has
practically nothing to do with the power of .NET. So those who think that a
C# program or programmer is somehow superior to a VB.NET program or
programmer are likely very naive.

You can certainly write utility programs in .net - just be prepared for a
steeper learning curve than you had with VBScript. Once you're familiar with
the new way of doing things I think you'll like it. There's practically
nothing you can't do.

You will still most certainly wonder why it takes more code in C# than in
VBScript to accomplish certain tasks, like file I/O - but that's just the
way it is.

Apparently the transition to VB.NET is supposed to be easier for those with
a VB background - so you might want to question your management on the move
to C# and get them to approve you to learn VB.NET. The capabilities are
practically identical with VB.NET - but VB.NET has a more familiar syntax
for you - so you'd get up to speed more quickly. VB.NET also offers more
"training wheels".

-FWIW

Bob,

Thanks for the response. To be honest, I'm not clear what my objectives
are... I write utility type programs in WB; small apps that don't require
the
level of depth one can achieve with C#. And... our management is pushing
us
to move to C#. I don't believe they appreciate the difference between WB
and
C#.

That said, even for "simple" stuff in C#, I think one would stand a better
chance of comprehending what's going on if one starts "from the
beginning."
So... I'm trying to ascertain if the beginning is .Net or not...

Thanks,

Lang

You would benefit from becoming clear on your objectives. If you just
want
to write little more than scripts, then any intro level book will do.
Given
such a lowly objective, you would then find everything way too difficult,
unintuitive, and gripe [at least to yourself] about how .NET is too hard
("because xyz was so much easier with WinBatch"). But if you want to
become
a more serious programmer, then you will benefit from learning
object-oriented programming concepts, principles, and best practices -
how
..NET utilizes and promotes such concepts, and finaly how you can use C#
to
implement those principles and best practices in your applications.

-HTH

My programming experience is limited to some vbscript and WinBatch.

Where to start on learning C#? Do I need to work on .Net first?

TIA,

Lang

 

[Guest]

OK... to dig a little deeper... I can do most of the basic stuff I need to do
in C#. But... we do a lot of reading and -writing- to ini files and now we're
being told to do that with XML files and, from what I've seen, reading XML's
is fairly easy but -writing- to them is perhaps a little harder.

I found two libraries that read/write XML's but, gosh, when I look at the
code, I'm lost. So... I'm not sure if understanding what's going on in those
libraries is solely a C# question or a .Net question...

Thanks,

Lang

You would benefit from becoming clear on your objectives. If you just want
to write little more than scripts, then any intro level book will do. Given
such a lowly objective, you would then find everything way too difficult,
unintuitive, and gripe [at least to yourself] about how .NET is too hard
("because xyz was so much easier with WinBatch"). But if you want to become
a more serious programmer, then you will benefit from learning
object-oriented programming concepts, principles, and best practices - how
..NET utilizes and promotes such concepts, and finaly how you can use C# to
implement those principles and best practices in your applications.

-HTH

My programming experience is limited to some vbscript and WinBatch.

Where to start on learning C#? Do I need to work on .Net first?

TIA,

Lang

 

[Alberto Poblacion]

[...] from what I've seen, reading XML's
is fairly easy but -writing- to them is perhaps a little harder.

I found two libraries that read/write XML's but, gosh, when I look at the
code, I'm lost. So... I'm not sure if understanding what's going on in
those
libraries is solely a C# question or a .Net question...

Writing to XML files need not be difficult. You can load the xml file
into an XmlDocument object, manipulate the contents in memory, and then save
the XmlDocument. The difficulty here would be in understanding object model
of the XmlDocument. But this is a standard: it follows the DOM (Document
Object Model), which is useful to learn anyway, since it is not specific of
..Net. For instance, if you were to work with xml from VBscript, you would
most likely create a MSXML object, which internally uses the same DOM. So
it's worth investing the time and effort to learn the DOM, and once you've
done that, you will find that using the XmlDocument to read and write xml
files on .Net is a breeze.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms764620.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmldocument.aspx

 

[Ben Voigt [C++ MVP]]

OK... to dig a little deeper... I can do most of the basic stuff I need to
do
in C#. But... we do a lot of reading and -writing- to ini files and now
we're
being told to do that with XML files and, from what I've seen, reading
XML's
is fairly easy but -writing- to them is perhaps a little harder.

Writing XML is incredibly easy, you barely need any sort of library at all
(maybe a utility function to properly encode special characters). Just
simple string concatenation will make an XML file.

I found two libraries that read/write XML's but, gosh, when I look at the
code, I'm lost. So... I'm not sure if understanding what's going on in
those
libraries is solely a C# question or a .Net question...

Thanks,

Lang

You would benefit from becoming clear on your objectives. If you just
want
to write little more than scripts, then any intro level book will do.
Given
such a lowly objective, you would then find everything way too difficult,
unintuitive, and gripe [at least to yourself] about how .NET is too hard
("because xyz was so much easier with WinBatch"). But if you want to
become
a more serious programmer, then you will benefit from learning
object-oriented programming concepts, principles, and best practices -
how
..NET utilizes and promotes such concepts, and finaly how you can use C#
to
implement those principles and best practices in your applications.

-HTH

My programming experience is limited to some vbscript and WinBatch.

Where to start on learning C#? Do I need to work on .Net first?

TIA,

Lang

 

[Guest]

Bob,

Thanks for the response. C# is the way forward for our group. VB was
considered, from what I've heard, but C# was chosen.

I appreciate your insights. I'll start studying .Net while I continue to
muddle about in C#.

Thanks!

Lang

IMO, "the beginning" is to grasp what the .NET framework is and how to
leverage it's massive base class library. The particular language has
practically nothing to do with the power of .NET. So those who think that a
C# program or programmer is somehow superior to a VB.NET program or
programmer are likely very naive.

You can certainly write utility programs in .net - just be prepared for a
steeper learning curve than you had with VBScript. Once you're familiar with
the new way of doing things I think you'll like it. There's practically
nothing you can't do.

You will still most certainly wonder why it takes more code in C# than in
VBScript to accomplish certain tasks, like file I/O - but that's just the
way it is.

Apparently the transition to VB.NET is supposed to be easier for those with
a VB background - so you might want to question your management on the move
to C# and get them to approve you to learn VB.NET. The capabilities are
practically identical with VB.NET - but VB.NET has a more familiar syntax
for you - so you'd get up to speed more quickly. VB.NET also offers more
"training wheels".

-FWIW

Bob,

Thanks for the response. To be honest, I'm not clear what my objectives
are... I write utility type programs in WB; small apps that don't require
the
level of depth one can achieve with C#. And... our management is pushing
us
to move to C#. I don't believe they appreciate the difference between WB
and
C#.

That said, even for "simple" stuff in C#, I think one would stand a better
chance of comprehending what's going on if one starts "from the
beginning."
So... I'm trying to ascertain if the beginning is .Net or not...

Thanks,

Lang

You would benefit from becoming clear on your objectives. If you just
want
to write little more than scripts, then any intro level book will do.
Given
such a lowly objective, you would then find everything way too difficult,
unintuitive, and gripe [at least to yourself] about how .NET is too hard
("because xyz was so much easier with WinBatch"). But if you want to
become
a more serious programmer, then you will benefit from learning
object-oriented programming concepts, principles, and best practices -
how
..NET utilizes and promotes such concepts, and finaly how you can use C#
to
implement those principles and best practices in your applications.

-HTH





My programming experience is limited to some vbscript and WinBatch.

Where to start on learning C#? Do I need to work on .Net first?

TIA,

Lang

 

[Guest]

Alberto,

Thanks for the feedback and links; appreciated!

Lang

[...] from what I've seen, reading XML's
is fairly easy but -writing- to them is perhaps a little harder.

I found two libraries that read/write XML's but, gosh, when I look at the
code, I'm lost. So... I'm not sure if understanding what's going on in
those
libraries is solely a C# question or a .Net question...

Writing to XML files need not be difficult. You can load the xml file
into an XmlDocument object, manipulate the contents in memory, and then save
the XmlDocument. The difficulty here would be in understanding object model
of the XmlDocument. But this is a standard: it follows the DOM (Document
Object Model), which is useful to learn anyway, since it is not specific of
..Net. For instance, if you were to work with xml from VBscript, you would
most likely create a MSXML object, which internally uses the same DOM. So
it's worth investing the time and effort to learn the DOM, and once you've
done that, you will find that using the XmlDocument to read and write xml
files on .Net is a breeze.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms764620.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmldocument.aspx