Suggestion to learn .net 2.0 and above

[Guest]

I want to learn .net 2.0 and above. I have no knowledge in .net at all.
There are Visual Studio 2005 Virtual Labs and Visual Studio .NET 2003 Virtual
Labs in MSDN. My understanding is that Visual Studio .NET 2003 is for .net
1.0. However, it seems to me that the VS .net 2003 labs may be better than
VS 2005 labs for beginners like me. Should I start from VS .net 2003 labs or
go directly to VS 2005 labs?

 

[darrel]

Should I start from VS .net 2003 labs or

go directly to VS 2005 labs?

What experience do you have? Are you a programmer? Developer?

If not, I'd definitely go straight to '05 and avoid any of the issues of
differences between the two. Note that a VS lab is going to teach you more
about how VS works rather than how the code it writes works.

-Darrel

 

[Tom Serface]

I'd start with VS 2005. You can do a lot of .NET stuff with the Express
version you can download. There are a ton of .NET examples on
www.codeproject.com.

Tom

 

[clintonG]

You can't really do any ASP.NET without knowing a compliant programming
language like VB.NET or C#. It makes more sense to learn C# than VB.NET
because the syntax for C# and JavaScript is exactly alike and the grammar
nearly so. JavaScript is required for code that runs in the client (the
browser) and the C# code runs on the server (the web server). So you learn
two languages for the price of one (more actually but this will do for now
as many languages share the C syntax and grammar but VB does not).

Go to Deitel & Deitel [1] and make a note of a couple of their C# "Learn to
Program" textbooks. Then have your local Barnes & Noble order them for
review. Look them over and buy the one that is best for your learning level.
Deitel publishes the best programming textbooks used in classrooms
everywhere and you will learn C# doing the lessons in the book. Then start
learning ASP.NET.

Download the free Visual Web Developer Express and SQL Server Express and a
textbook from Deitel & Deitel. You're ready to go...

<%= Clinton Gallagher
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
URL http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/

[1] http://deitel.com/

 

[RobinS]

Have you done programming in the past, and in what language(s)? Are you
wanting to create desktop applications or web applications?

Robin S.

 

[Guest]

Hi Tom and others,

I only have programming experience in Visual FoxPro and T-SQL in SQL Server
2000/2005. I have access to VS 2005 Team Edition for Software Developer. I
need to work on a project using XML Web Service and .Net 2.0 and above. The
language will probably be VB.net and some c#. Need suggestions on websites,
articles, books, and webcasts for my experience. I want to make sure that
I'm not learning something which is being pharsed out.

 

[RobinS]

I would definitely start with the 2005 version of Visual Studio.

VB's not going anywhere. VB would probably be easier for you, and then you
can move into C# as you need to. That's what I did. C# was a lot easier to
learn because I had already learned the .Net Framework with VB which I was
more familiar with.

For VB, check out Tim Patrick's Start-to-Finish VB2005. It has a *lot* of
information in it. My only problem with it was his code wasn't really
standard, but it *did* work great, and his UI was fabulous. It has a wide
variety of topics that aren't covered in many books, like the Reporting
Services. It's also very readable. And if you do the exercises, you end up
building an entire huge application.

If you need help with OOP and want to know how to split your application
into three parts (presentation layer, business layer, and data layer),
check out Deborah Kurata's "Doing Objects in VB2005". You end up building
an application in this book as well, in a more standard way. It's very
pragmatic and understandable. It also has a bunch of tips for stuff like
code snippets and saving user settings and how to access SQLServer from
Visual Studio.

For C#, I liked Andrew Troelsen's "Pro C# with .Net 3.0", but it's not for
the faint of heart. It assumes you know or are familiar with C or C++. I
think he also wrote a VB version (or edited it for someone else), but I
haven't checked that one out.

Good luck.
Robin S.
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