Any book suggestions for a working programmer?
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Hi to everyone in this great crowd. For two years now, I've been a professional programmer. I work in .NET (C#, ASP.NET, WPF, WCF) and so far the ride has been great - I am hoping for a long and prosperous career. But I have a nagging voice in my head reminding me that everything I know of .NET was learned ad-hoc, in the heat of the moment, in a do or die situation. Starting a project in a never-before-used technology was, and still is a frequent occurrence. Now, don't get me wrong - I would soon get bored if everything stayed the same as I love learning new technologies, and googling for answers to my questions. But I have this nagging feeling that I need to learn the "proper" way to do things sooner or latter - preferably sooner. Here I am talking about using general language features, design patterns, and the lovely .NET framework classes to their full extent. So, in the attempt to en-better my (still somewhat green) professional skills I am asking for advice - do you know of some good books to get a .NET programmer on the way to better and greater coding? Do any of you have the "It may work, but learn to do it right" urge?
Dune. But seriously, just make sure you and your colleagues review each others' code and bounce ideas off each other as well.
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Dune. But seriously, just make sure you and your colleagues review each others' code and bounce ideas off each other as well.
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The Gang of Four is IMHO the most dangerous book unleashed on the development world and I'm seriously wary of those who have a copy on their desk - nothing has done more for the world of over-engineered complex design. Simple is always best.
Regards, Rob Philpott.
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The Gang of Four is IMHO the most dangerous book unleashed on the development world and I'm seriously wary of those who have a copy on their desk - nothing has done more for the world of over-engineered complex design. Simple is always best.
Regards, Rob Philpott.
First, simple is NOT always best. There are times complexity is a necessary evil to accomplish what you need. Which is not to say you should over-engineer something. That said, GoF is not really the best book to learn patterns from. It's influential and important, but that's not quite the same thing. Successfully adapting patterns others have used and learned from into your own designs is pretty obviously a good idea.
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Hi to everyone in this great crowd. For two years now, I've been a professional programmer. I work in .NET (C#, ASP.NET, WPF, WCF) and so far the ride has been great - I am hoping for a long and prosperous career. But I have a nagging voice in my head reminding me that everything I know of .NET was learned ad-hoc, in the heat of the moment, in a do or die situation. Starting a project in a never-before-used technology was, and still is a frequent occurrence. Now, don't get me wrong - I would soon get bored if everything stayed the same as I love learning new technologies, and googling for answers to my questions. But I have this nagging feeling that I need to learn the "proper" way to do things sooner or latter - preferably sooner. Here I am talking about using general language features, design patterns, and the lovely .NET framework classes to their full extent. So, in the attempt to en-better my (still somewhat green) professional skills I am asking for advice - do you know of some good books to get a .NET programmer on the way to better and greater coding? Do any of you have the "It may work, but learn to do it right" urge?
Safari bookshelf is a good resource, since technologies change so often. You can read any book you like and decide which best fits your needs.
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Rajesh R Subramanian wrote:
Would you like to be shot or hung?
toss a coin?
thatraja |Chennai|India|
Brainbench certifications
Down-votes are like kid's kisses don't reject it :-)
Do what you want quickly because the Doomsday on 2012 :-) -
No, I said toss a coin for hung or shot if you are in confusion to choose from the two. :rolleyes:
thatraja |Chennai|India|
Brainbench certifications
Down-votes are like kid's kisses don't reject it :-)
Do what you want quickly because the Doomsday on 2012 :-) -
No, I said toss a coin for hung or shot if you are in confusion to choose from the two. :rolleyes:
thatraja |Chennai|India|
Brainbench certifications
Down-votes are like kid's kisses don't reject it :-)
Do what you want quickly because the Doomsday on 2012 :-) -
also "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy"
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blackjack2150 wrote:
Should I belive you or Microsoft?
Would you like to be shot or hung?
There are some really weird people on this planet - MIM.
Technically it should be "hanged". Looks weird, I know. Stupid English.
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Hi to everyone in this great crowd. For two years now, I've been a professional programmer. I work in .NET (C#, ASP.NET, WPF, WCF) and so far the ride has been great - I am hoping for a long and prosperous career. But I have a nagging voice in my head reminding me that everything I know of .NET was learned ad-hoc, in the heat of the moment, in a do or die situation. Starting a project in a never-before-used technology was, and still is a frequent occurrence. Now, don't get me wrong - I would soon get bored if everything stayed the same as I love learning new technologies, and googling for answers to my questions. But I have this nagging feeling that I need to learn the "proper" way to do things sooner or latter - preferably sooner. Here I am talking about using general language features, design patterns, and the lovely .NET framework classes to their full extent. So, in the attempt to en-better my (still somewhat green) professional skills I am asking for advice - do you know of some good books to get a .NET programmer on the way to better and greater coding? Do any of you have the "It may work, but learn to do it right" urge?
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Don't bother with books. The best way to actually LEARN something new is to write code in an area that is outside your comfort zone. Of course, you have to be careful about which platform you chose because Microsoft will just stop supporting something out of the blue, and you're left standing their with your thumb up your ass - just ask the unmanaged C++ coders, and soon, Silverlight coders...
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Don't bother with books. The best way to actually LEARN something new is to write code in an area that is outside your comfort zone.
I'll have to disagree. As someone who learned a lot through books, I wouldn't even be able to get outside my comfort zone if it weren't for them. I beleive books get you so far, and then you get out and venture. And there are many things people are unaware of their existance that are learnable through books. They also avoid a lot of wheel reinventing and let you know about very good and proven techiniques.
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C++ does not need "support" from MS to sustain itself on the market. On the other hand, MS *does* want to support C++ fully - the C++0x core language support, some UI improvements in MFC, enhanced debugging capabilities for multi-threaded native code, etc., in VS 2010 are some of the examples. Sure, they can do better than whatever they've been doing, but they're trying hard. They won't drop support for C++. And if they do take such a drastic step, they will lose more than anyone, AND that will anyway not have a measurable impact on the C++ community.
There are some really weird people on this planet - MIM.
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Well they have dropped the ball with c++ in Visual Studio 2010. There is no intellisense support for c++. :-( Have to get Visual Assist to get intelisense. btw, try reading Pragmatic programmer, and Code Complete 2. Found those insightful :-)
Phasma. wrote:
Well they have dropped the ball with c++ in Visual Studio 2010. There is no intellisense support for c++
VS 2010 has intellisense support for C++. You are probably talking about C++/CLI, which I couldn't care less about (and C++/CLI is NOT the same as C++).
There are some really weird people on this planet - MIM.
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Hi to everyone in this great crowd. For two years now, I've been a professional programmer. I work in .NET (C#, ASP.NET, WPF, WCF) and so far the ride has been great - I am hoping for a long and prosperous career. But I have a nagging voice in my head reminding me that everything I know of .NET was learned ad-hoc, in the heat of the moment, in a do or die situation. Starting a project in a never-before-used technology was, and still is a frequent occurrence. Now, don't get me wrong - I would soon get bored if everything stayed the same as I love learning new technologies, and googling for answers to my questions. But I have this nagging feeling that I need to learn the "proper" way to do things sooner or latter - preferably sooner. Here I am talking about using general language features, design patterns, and the lovely .NET framework classes to their full extent. So, in the attempt to en-better my (still somewhat green) professional skills I am asking for advice - do you know of some good books to get a .NET programmer on the way to better and greater coding? Do any of you have the "It may work, but learn to do it right" urge?
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This is probably the most most useful general .NET book I have read: CLR via C# Cheers, Daniel
Daniel Vaughan Twitter | Blog | Microsoft MVP | Projects: Calcium SDK, Clog | LinkedIn
yep Agree. Just finished reading CLR via C# third addition. I just wish i had read it earlier.
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No confusion here. Coin toss came up "hung". So, do I take a pill or something? Can't wait to show the missus.
Narf.
Naruki wrote:
No confusion here. Coin toss came up "hung". So, do I take a pill or something? Can't wait to show the missus.
Pill is easy but with sleeping pill will be very fine :-D
thatraja |Chennai|India|
Brainbench certifications
Down-votes are like kid's kisses don't reject it :-)
Do what you want quickly because the Doomsday on 2012 :-) -
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
unmanaged C++
Really? unmanaged c++ and perhaps c are probably the languages I would bet on being around the longest.
Simon
I gotta say, 5 years ago I was worried C++ was going away. Microsoft was talking up C# everywhere and everyone was learning Java in school, and I wondered which way I needed to jump when I bit the bullet and retrained. But now... Oracle is attempting to flush Java down the toilet sueing everybody doing any innovation with it. Turns out C# was the answer to the question, "How can I quickly train up a bunch of Indian programmers with associates degrees who will work for peanuts?" Learn C# and that's who you have to compete against. (And there's nothing wrong with those guys except that they will work for peanuts). Then C++ turned out to be way faster than C#, and the desktop PC is less relevant than ever. I'm feeling much better about that horrible old unmanaged language... Only I know how to use smart pointers so I don't have resource leaks. And I know how to use custom allocators in the unlikely event I should need finer control over memory management than I already have. And I know how to get templates to do all my work at compile time, so my code is competitive with the best hand-written assembler. I wish C++ was easier to learn. I wish it didn't have so many rules that piled up in combinations. But for the well-trained it's a rich and powerful toolkit, capable of the fastest possible execution. Learning to get good at the hard stuff is what you have to do if you want to stay employed in the 21st century.