New to writing code...brain is melting......
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Hi, ITWino, In my opinion, if you "have been been doing IT work for over 25 years (servers, networks, hardware, etc...)," then you are already a programmer on many levels. The skills of logical analysis, framing the problem to be solved, planning a solution in stages, step-by-step iteration and testing, and problem-solving, etc., you know in hardware will, I believe, transpose into programming. While I think it is unfortunate that you are going to focus on VB.NET to learn programming, if that's the "currency" of the work environment you are in for the future, well, so be it. I say this not because I have any prejudice against VB.NET, but, because I think Microsoft truly created a mutant monster when they adapted VB6 to VB.NET, and the awkward and obscure syntax, and constructs, they added to the language to force it to fit into an object-oriented programming universe, is a spaghetti-verse of syntax that makes learning/using it much more difficult than, for example, C#. For learning basic programming concepts, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using an IDE like Visual Studio ! Programming these days is about objects, and events, about classes, and sub-classes, about graphic user-interfaces, and database access. Programming, now, is about user-interfaces in which asynchronous events occur (the does user does anything at any time, depending on mode/context). If you have a set of good introductory books, go through them step-by-step. Pose yourself small challenges, and implement them. You like math problems: how about Project Euler as a source of a vast series of problems to solve (from simple to very complex) [^]. And, you have had other good resources recommended to you, here, by several people, like the course at MIT. Consider asking the experts in your own company for their advice/thoughts on small projects to create on your own: if your goal is to become productive writing code in your company. yrs, Bill
This thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only seekers find it. Abu Yazid Al-Bistami (Persian, Sufi, 804-872)
"I say this not because I have any prejudice against VB.NET, but, because I think Microsoft truly created a mutant monster when they adapted VB6 to VB.NET, and the awkward and obscure syntax, and constructs, they added to the language to force it to fit into an object-oriented programming universe, is a spaghetti-verse of syntax that makes learning/using it much more difficult than, for example, C#." You are so far off the mark there your comment is laughable. VB.Net is a completely different beast to VB6 or VBA. Geez, its been ten years since VB.Net was released, when will people forget VB6 and move on from their noob like prejudices! VB.Net is OO from the ground up. It has more in common with C# than VB6!
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Hello all.... Great web site. Love the info and suggestions I can get here. So, I have been doing IT work for over 25 years (servers, networks, hardware, etc...) and never delved into the development field. I now have the opportunity to learn writing and modifying code, but I am having a hard time making this logic click. I have several beginner books on Visual Studio (2005,2010,2012)and have done the training classes offered by a local business. I am focusing on Visual Basic as my language of choice because the company I work for uses this only. Any suggestions on how I can make all this info click? I understand the concepts, but just could not write the code behind a app i lay out in VS Designer to save my life. EDIT: Thanks all for the great advice. I sort of suspected I was trying to bite off more than I could chew. Going to go back simple and work my way up.
I am a self taught VB developer. I learned basic programming concepts in high school in the 70's and learned Fortran in college in the early 80's. I recommend this series of video tutorials if you are interested: http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Visual-Basic-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners[^] Very easy to follow and they are geared toward VB express so you can get the IDE at home. Hope this helps!
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Hello all.... Great web site. Love the info and suggestions I can get here. So, I have been doing IT work for over 25 years (servers, networks, hardware, etc...) and never delved into the development field. I now have the opportunity to learn writing and modifying code, but I am having a hard time making this logic click. I have several beginner books on Visual Studio (2005,2010,2012)and have done the training classes offered by a local business. I am focusing on Visual Basic as my language of choice because the company I work for uses this only. Any suggestions on how I can make all this info click? I understand the concepts, but just could not write the code behind a app i lay out in VS Designer to save my life. EDIT: Thanks all for the great advice. I sort of suspected I was trying to bite off more than I could chew. Going to go back simple and work my way up.
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Learning Visual Basic will tar you as a n00b forever, and firmly establish a reputation that will be very difficult to get out of. If you are going to learn a CLR language, C# might be a better choice. And if you want to expand your horizons beyond Microsoft, java might be the one.
-- Harvey
Of course you will be noob, only because you program on language without ";". VB.Net and Csharp are 97% like same, only compiler AST are different, in most cases, IL generated are same. Even in new framework, the compiler will be the same.
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Like dotnet IL
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Hello all.... Great web site. Love the info and suggestions I can get here. So, I have been doing IT work for over 25 years (servers, networks, hardware, etc...) and never delved into the development field. I now have the opportunity to learn writing and modifying code, but I am having a hard time making this logic click. I have several beginner books on Visual Studio (2005,2010,2012)and have done the training classes offered by a local business. I am focusing on Visual Basic as my language of choice because the company I work for uses this only. Any suggestions on how I can make all this info click? I understand the concepts, but just could not write the code behind a app i lay out in VS Designer to save my life. EDIT: Thanks all for the great advice. I sort of suspected I was trying to bite off more than I could chew. Going to go back simple and work my way up.
I dislike the Visual part of Visual Studio, because it hides too much complexy that a novice programmer need to know to fully appreciate the Visual benefits, having said that, VB is a simple language that is as close as possible to speaking to the computer and telling it what to do, other language of that kind is Pascal (The Delphi variants are my favorites), so you may want to take a look at it if you have time. I recommend you to start with simple console apps, then start building simple Winforms apps from scratch (without the visual editor), and then go ahead using all the tools that Visual Studio offers you. Also, writing pseudocode in a piede of paper may help you to organize your ideas and get the logic you need to program efficiently.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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Hello all.... Great web site. Love the info and suggestions I can get here. So, I have been doing IT work for over 25 years (servers, networks, hardware, etc...) and never delved into the development field. I now have the opportunity to learn writing and modifying code, but I am having a hard time making this logic click. I have several beginner books on Visual Studio (2005,2010,2012)and have done the training classes offered by a local business. I am focusing on Visual Basic as my language of choice because the company I work for uses this only. Any suggestions on how I can make all this info click? I understand the concepts, but just could not write the code behind a app i lay out in VS Designer to save my life. EDIT: Thanks all for the great advice. I sort of suspected I was trying to bite off more than I could chew. Going to go back simple and work my way up.
I feel the pain! I was in the same position in 2001 when switching to VS C#. I use google to find examples and help (forget about MS help system). For example: a search on google for ListCollectionView will show a good list with examples from all corners of the world. If MS shows up first, I check it out but scroll down through the members list to the examples. Mentally, in 2001, I said to myself "this stuff looks like Greek to me but a year from now I'll understand it." It worked. Now it's all about design, coding is more about the never ending challenge to keep things "clean" and "tidy". I also purchased at least $1,000 in books over the first two years. If you want a really good beginners book on WPF and MVC try "Teach Yourself WPF in 24 Hours" by Eisenberg and Bennage. It will point you in the right direction and get those "little grey cells" electrified! Buy older books from Amazon "used" for a fraction of retail. Good luck and Cheers!
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ITWino wrote:
I have read that once you have a language down, it makes learning other languages easier...
This is indeed true to a certain extent. I know about 100 computer languages, and at least in the early days, it was all really just syntax. I was usually able to learn a new language by reading the language reference. There were several exceptions to this (assembly, APL, C). Nowadays that is not quite so true. What is more important to grasp is the concepts and programming paradigms involved: [assembly], object oriented programming, functional programming, web, templates, lambdas, ... Next to that is frameworks and environment: MFC, WTL, CLR, unix/linux, ... Finally: Concurrency Each of these is a separate skill, and shifting from one language to another is a much smaller step if you understand the paradigms involved.
-- Harvey
H.Brydon wrote:
at least in the early days, it was all really just syntax.
I am experiencing something like this right now. I know about 3 or more languages (depends on what you consider 'knowing' a language). I was given a test in a language I had never attempted to learn before. I had to fix 3 bugs. The first was just strings that are really dates being sorted alphabetically like "1-Feb-2012" coming before "1-Jan-2012". I had to make it sort chronologically. I got the syntax down, found out how the date types work, and I fixed it. The other 2 bugs had nothing to do with the main code language they were using. The template system they use needed to be modified for the second bug. The third bug involved changing an oracle database table to include two more columns, and having their build scripts and code generation tools pick up these two extra values. I fixed 2 out of 3. I felt awesome when I made that brand new language do what I wanted, and then stupid for not knowing nearly enough about the other components that drive their application. I am on a mission now to learn these things, and what you just said really hit home.
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Hello all.... Great web site. Love the info and suggestions I can get here. So, I have been doing IT work for over 25 years (servers, networks, hardware, etc...) and never delved into the development field. I now have the opportunity to learn writing and modifying code, but I am having a hard time making this logic click. I have several beginner books on Visual Studio (2005,2010,2012)and have done the training classes offered by a local business. I am focusing on Visual Basic as my language of choice because the company I work for uses this only. Any suggestions on how I can make all this info click? I understand the concepts, but just could not write the code behind a app i lay out in VS Designer to save my life. EDIT: Thanks all for the great advice. I sort of suspected I was trying to bite off more than I could chew. Going to go back simple and work my way up.
Keep at it. I personally prefer C#. There's only one thing I really dislike about vb.net and that's no built in intellisense. (It has no problem using it, but no way I found to create it and the documentation expressly says it isn't supported, so I doubt I missed the nook where it works. Anyone who would call you a n00b for using vb.net is a n00b in programming. Be sure you understand the underlying OO concepts that built C++ to begin with.
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etkins wrote:
you can't.
it's a personality thing.
either your personality maps to the job description or it doesn't.Utter nonsense ! yrs, Bill
This thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only seekers find it. Abu Yazid Al-Bistami (Persian, Sufi, 804-872)
bill, read this, call them up, ask them some questions: http://www.bizet.com/index.php. I took the AVA.
David
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I've known quality developers with all manner of personalities.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
it's not the "variety" of personalities -- it is likely they have two strong traits in common: analytical and problem solving oriented, i.e. like to fix things, find out how things work, seek to understand the "how" and the "why". Zen in on that for just a second.
David
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it's not the "variety" of personalities -- it is likely they have two strong traits in common: analytical and problem solving oriented, i.e. like to fix things, find out how things work, seek to understand the "how" and the "why". Zen in on that for just a second.
David
What people do in the privacy of their brain is very often not reflected in their outward appearance and behaviour. You cannot say that someone is not a "programming type" unless you have complete, intimate details of how and what they think. I would say that another major requirement for a good programmer is creativity, and you never know how a creative person might like to make himself appear to others.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Hello all.... Great web site. Love the info and suggestions I can get here. So, I have been doing IT work for over 25 years (servers, networks, hardware, etc...) and never delved into the development field. I now have the opportunity to learn writing and modifying code, but I am having a hard time making this logic click. I have several beginner books on Visual Studio (2005,2010,2012)and have done the training classes offered by a local business. I am focusing on Visual Basic as my language of choice because the company I work for uses this only. Any suggestions on how I can make all this info click? I understand the concepts, but just could not write the code behind a app i lay out in VS Designer to save my life. EDIT: Thanks all for the great advice. I sort of suspected I was trying to bite off more than I could chew. Going to go back simple and work my way up.
I'd start with http://www.w3schools.com and go from there.