New Language, New Problems… Er, Opportunities For Growth
Where does one get P2P online help for C#? I’ve been looking at a few forums… What do you recommend?
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[...] in her personal blog posts. Here she discusses everything from productivity and alcoholism to journeys into C#. She’s also brilliant on camera. Rachel Botsman Twitter: @rachelbotsman Role: Co-author of [...]
The best site I have ever found for getting answers to programming questions (especially C#) is http://stackoverflow.com/
It was created by programmers for programmers, to be a resource for anyone who is interested in programming.
If you ever need help, just post on your blog or Twitter and people like me would be happy to help.
As for forums, the only programming forum I go to is mainly focused around Game Development/Programming so I can’t really help you there I’m afraid.
Good luck!
Which bit are you stuck with? I’d love to help if I can, nothin’ more fun than geek talk!
Just to jump in there with classes and objects:
Classes define a discrete and complete (finite) set of variables and methods. Objects are instances of classes that can be used to interact with during runtime.
Classes help define the type system used in object oriented programming by creating a fixed definition of what that type is. So for example the type String is a class that contains all methods and variables necessary to represent a string of characters in a useful way. Once the type has been defined as a class, the type can be instantiated as an object.
Classes are used to break programs up into discrete parts in order to better manage the code and also because classes allow for modelling of real-world systems and structures (particularly in business). Classes are used to define the minimum components necessary to represent the type being modelled. An OO programmer working for a company may create the type CustomerOrder as a class that contains all information necessary to represent customer orders. Now every time a customer order is made, a new CustomerOrder object is created with variables in place to represent that very customer’s specific details.
As a nice example: a chef is hired to make pancakes in a restaurant. The chef knows how to make pancakes because he has the instructions for how to make a pancake next to him, that he can refer to every time he needs to make one. However, each order he receives is slightly different, as some people want chocolate sauce on it and others want ice-cream. Adding these extras to the final dessert is not hard, but he has to make sure that every customer gets what they ordered.
So for each order, the chef looks at his pancake recipe (he has a very poor memory), and cooks a ‘house special’ pancake every time, according to the recipe. He then adds onto that the variables, i.e. the customer specific ingredients. Once he has added that, he has an object or instance of the pancake recipe. The object here is the final combination of the pancake, that is always the same, and the topping, which is always different. Once we have those things, we have an object from the class.
Phew! That was fun
Does that help at all with that old conundrum, or did you already know it?
Any further questions I’d always be happy to try and answer.
The Stack Exchange network is probably one of the best resource for any of the subjects it has. For general coding, it has Stack Overflow:
http://stackoverflow.com/
The other topics / sites can be found at:
http://stackexchange.com/sites
http://www.stackOverflow.com is your friend.
Awesome analogy from Alex on the pancake scenaerio pretty much somes up the oo sitiation. Stick with it , at the end you should be able to take the concepts to java and c++. So learning the ideas is super also stackoverflow is superb learning tool aswell as google blog search. Videos also.
A few c++ related things happening in the bay area
http://www.meetup.com/Alt-Net-San-Francisco/
http://www.meetup.com/LADOTNET/members/
http://csharp.meetup.com/
http://women-programmers.meetup.com/members/us/ca/san_francisco/
http://www.bayazure.org/
http://c.meetup.com/cities/us/ca/san_francisco/
Thanks dude! A moment of inspiration hit me at that point, and I love pancakes!
Jolie,
If you have C# questions (or any programming questions), the best place I’ve found to get help is http://stackoverflow.com/. Sign up free, post as many questions as you want, or use the search to see if someone else has had the same question already (they likely have).
And there’s always Twitter. You have some followers who can help.
Brandon
If you haven’t already check out stackoverflow.com next time you have a wft moment. Tonnes of quality stuff, and queck answers if it hasn’t been asked before.
Whilst not as quick as just asking someone, the actual documentation for the .NET framework (assuming you’re interested in .NET also) is some of the best I’ve come across.
Just google msdn + the namespace/class name youre looking for. Most event have code examples. Instant win right there.
Also:
http://msmvps.com/blogs/jon_skeet/
C# in depth – Jon Skeet
.NET Framework Design Guidelines – Cwalina Abrams
DO NOT USE STACK OVERFLOW! Not unless you need to use Stack Overflow of course! But then you already knew that didn’t ya Jolie Gaga
Stack Overflow is a great resource for specific questions. I found the MSDN documentation for the base class libraries was pretty good. I’m a big fan of LINQ and if you aren’t using it yet, you really should (because it is so totally awesome). I have some getting started with LINQ material on my blog you might find useful:
Getting started with LINQ
http://www.i-think22.net/archives/2009/02/14/getting-started-with-linq/
LINQ and extension methods
http://www.i-think22.net/archives/2009/02/16/linq-and-extension-methods/
LINQ and deferred execution
http://www.i-think22.net/archives/2009/02/18/linq-and-deferred-execution/
And introduction to lambda expressions in LINQ
http://www.i-think22.net/archives/2009/02/21/an-introduction-to-lambda-expressions-in-linq/
XML made easy with LINQ
http://www.i-think22.net/archives/2009/02/25/xml-made-easy-with-linq-to-xml/
Writing XML with XElement
http://www.i-think22.net/archives/2009/02/27/writing-xml-with-xelement/
Learning a new language is fun and C# is definitely a fun language to master. Happy to help if you have any questions.
I like your website. Thank you for great information. I will come back to your website again.
Why not try this …
http://i.imgur.com/5gGJ2.png
I ran across your youtube video somehow looking for Mono for Android…odd, but was funny.
C# is much like c, c++, java, php (all c based languages) so knowing the fundamentals always helps (for, while, etc).
1. If you want to learn programming ya gotta start with the basics, OOP. No matter what language a good understanding of OOP goes a long way. Every object serves a purpose.
2. It depends on what your interested in (web, desktop, web services, etc), but since most people start with web stuff I’d recommend going though ASP.NET MVC, http://www.asp.net/mvc. MVC is a pattern but learn the code and understand the pattern latter. I find the best thing is to come up with a stupid coding project that means something to you and let that project drive your learning, it will keep you interested and in the directions you desire.
3. http://stackoverflow.com/ like everyone has mentioned is the best resource out there for finding answers to a specific problem though i wouldn’t use it to learn C#.
Look into lisp.
If you look too long into the lisp, the lisp looks also into you.