Thanks, Gerry. Code-first does sound best for me, for the same reasons as you.

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Interesting stuff, Richard. Thank you. Looks like I have some reading and experimenting to do.

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I have been looking at various ORM libraries. Many of these seem to rely on attributes placed on classes and fields in the model. I understand that attributes can be completely ignored by the build process but I'm not sure how such library-specific attributes fit with the whole idea of dependency injection and being able to swap in/out different data providers without requiring any other changes - and certainly not as 'deep down' as the model layer. I am also puzzled by the workflow using ORM tools. Some require the POCO class to be defined and some ask the data tables to be designed first, but once the first iteration of all this is in a production environment, how on earth do you then instigate any changes without obliterating the live database? I'd be extremely grateful if anyone could point me at some good reading around this whole subject. Kind wishes - Patrick

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Thank you, Gerry. Some things in there I had thought about but maybe not thought enough about. (I didn't even know Microsoft had an app store, at least one that you maybe can make money out of.)

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Good advice, Richard, and something I haven't done enough of.

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Is is realistic to make money from a small mobile/tablet app? That's a ridiculously vague question, I know, so I'll add a bit of background. I'm coming to the end of a long project that has increased my experience of mobile application programming (using Xamarin and C#). I don't yet have another contract lined up. What I do have are ideas for two or three small applications, the smallest of which may take only about a month-or-so to get to a first version. Judging by other applications I have seen in the app store, I'd say that my application is something someone might pay £0-99 or £1-99 to get the Pro version (which I'd advertise in the Standard version). And I am wondering if I can make a few quid? I don't expect to make much but even £10-£50 per month is still money in the bank. I don't seem to be able to get any kind of answer anywhere whether this is remotely likely. I guess I am hoping that one of you out there has personal experience of this and could at least sketch me an outline of whether this is even worth a go. Absolutely any advice would be extremely welcome. - Patrick

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I can't argue with your real-world experience but I once had to compile some 90s C code (i.e. not that old) and it took me ages to get it to compile with either the MS compiler or GCC. I spent years writing C++ in video games and am well aware of its positives and negatives and why it is still essential for so many projects. All I am saying is that, in my opinion, C# is a better language than surveys would suggest and I agree with many other comments on here that argue there is bias and prejudice in the system.

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Don't they continually add to C++? After a few years break, I recently returned to C++ and could barely read what I was seeing. There's truth in what you say and obviously you have an absolute right to your opinion but I honestly think some people justifiably decided to hate Microsoft in the late 90s and have never looked again.

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Part II of the cutting of my programming teeth was in the video game world, using C++, where the rule was that exceptions are very much last-resort, only for events that should not happen and are generally unrecoverable, at least without some kind of restart. One thing I have often found difficult in C# is trying to avoid exceptions. Even when I have tried to do exceptions properly and catch the correct type etc., I find the program gets worse, not better, because, without looking up every single API call, you never know what exceptions might be thrown. Addiction recovery begins with admission so I will now admit here that I usually end with a catch( Exception ) {}. To me, in a language, it is as if you need one of two things: either a slimline composite return type that encapsulates any return value and also some kind of error indication (I know - dangerously close to the error return codes of old Win32 programming); or you need two basic types of exception - real ones that should ideally never happen, and a more everyday exception meaning, "Something has gone wrong in my code so don't continue using this value I am about to return to you."

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Takes me 20 years to learn a language! :confused:

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Yes, I am generally impressed by Lua. Such a simple idea implemented well.

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Again, I'd agree. I don't expect C# to take over the world, but it does seem to me that it would be a good even sometimes better fit for some new projects and yet seems almost to be the last language of choice. I find the dependency issue to be a problem with almost every language/system I've worked with, and indeed C# usually seems to fair pretty well on this score. And companies I've worked with seem eager - sometimes too eager - to adopt the latest shiny language on the block. Maybe it's a hangover from the days when 'real' programmers simply didn't want anything that Microsoft have had a hand in? (I used to be a Microsoft hater but much of their stuff these days seems excellent.)

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I'd agree with all of that. Having used C# for years, I recently had to do some C++ work and got a shock how long it took me just to get through a forest of 'Why the hell doesn't that compile?' questions.

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I've experimented with a lot of languages over the years and delivered production code in at least a handful. Of all, I find C# to be the most genial. It has syntax close enough to C/C++ not to alienate those programmers, has plenty of high-level stuff to keep users of languages such as Java happy, and these days has good performance and is open and cross-platform. The only thing I hate about it is the terrible 'destructor' pattern, which you can ignore most of the time. Despite all of this, I rarely if ever read a headline that says C# is gaining in popularity. There's no point in getting into too many syntax specifics because that would be a never-ending discussion but why does it fail to hit the spot with so many developers and companies?

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When I try to post a question, I get an internal server error. The preview for the question shows it formatted correctly. I am using Chrome on Windows 10. This appears to be an ongoing issue (either at my end or CP) because I got the same problem about ten days ago.

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Sorry - you are right. It never occurred to me. Here is the link: Backup Utility implementing Backup Rotation Scheme (Open Source Windows Forms Application in C#)[^]

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Excellent! Got it! I did do a few searches on Code Project but obviously missed the frustratingly simple method you used. My excuse is I have (had) blonde hair. (Am I allowed to say that anymore? Bound to traumatise someone.) Thank you! - Patrick

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A few weeks ago, a guy posted an article about a backup utility he had written. The way it works is that you give it a source directory and one-or-more target directories. It then backs up the source to the oldest target directory. In this way, you can keep a recent history of a directory for, say, the last week by running it daily on seven target directories. This happens to be precisely what I want, and I thought to myself, 'I must keep that post and install this when I get chance.' Unfortunately, I seem to have done my usual trick of putting it somewhere so safe that even I can't find it. Does any of this ring a bell with anyone out there? If not, can anyone suggest an alternative (preferably free, 'cos money is tight) tool that can do something similar? Any help would be very gratefully received. Kind wishes - Patrick

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That's very helpful! Thank you! I'll take some time to digest what you've written and I'm sure I'll be better informed to decide upon a way forward. - Patrick

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Thanks for the reply, Richard. I have visited the page you linked in my many travels on the subject but I quickly became unclear about how Razor could in any way stand alone from MVC. Having looked again at the page, I note that there is a separate link for Razor using MVC so I guess that implies what I am looking for is also contained somewhere in that section of MSDN. I'll do more research. I was just hoping to get a few informed comments about my general approach since I don't have too much free time to spend on this and ideally don't want to waste what time I do have wandering down a blind alley. Thanks again for your reply. - Patrick

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