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I'm going to have to write a big system in January with ASP.NET MVC3 / C#, and need to know how to write a system that will WORK. I do have a bit of experience with ASP.NET MVC and C# but would not call myself an expert. It needs to be extensible so that I can extend it later with new features. How would one go about this? Is there books that explains this topic in detail or should I use trial and error?
In short I need to know good design practice in my code thats extend-able for the future.
Regards
RaVen
The System will be a community portal with forums ratings etc. Cant say more than that << Company Policy>>, The forums I can manage because of plenty open source options... But the rest is up to me.
SOLID == Great Success
Follow SOLID principles in any project and you'll do well.
With regards to core infrastructure/architechure, SharpArchitecture is a good place to start. It is by no means the perfect solution...BUT they give you a good framework to play with and you can have a working system quickly while learning the concepts that work and don't work over time. Take a look and see what you think. It uses NHibernate, Castle and MVC.
Test Driven development will ensure quality for your project. Be strict with yourself, red green refractor. One of MVCs strengths is that it's easier to test.
Professional ASP.NET MVC 2 is a good starting point, though, I would assume that they'll come out with an MVC 3 edition as well. The NerdDinner tutorial contains a lot of ideas on how to structure your application.
Basic advice: work with the MVC architecture, not against it. Understand your application, especially your data model, and layer that onto your application structure. Typically you'll have a controller per model, but not always.
If you want more detailed advice, you'll need to be more specific about your project. I'd suggest coming up with specific questions about various details of your design as you have them, rather than a single question covering the whole project. The latter probably won't get the kind of response you desire.
you can use my "awesome" demo as a start
http://awesome.codeplex.com
If it's going to have to be extensible, make sure you write tests. You'll save yourself sleepless nights in the long run when you fix something, but ended up breaking the entire system.
As far as how to make things "WORK" - that depends on your ability. Read, and look to improve things, but don't get caught in premature optimization or it will leave you dead in the water.
Based upon your edit and your abilities, it might be wiser to select an open source CMS written in ASP.NET MVC and support it. Your skills are good enough, it sounds like, to learn how to write modules and be part of a larger community. You do not sound like you really want to write the whole thing because you are timid about your skills, deadlines, etc. Whilst learning the ins and outs of a well written piece of software, one day you may choose to write your own or contribute to a core piece of the software. There are several to choose from see my comment above under your question.
edit: I also think this will allow you to just start and not worry about every design paradigm people will throw at you for success.
WhoCanHelpMe is a nice reference application. It's built upon S#arp Architecture which is a good starting point for an MVC-application using domain driven design. That will also help you on the way with wiring IoC and db-stuff.
Remember that not every example and framework will fit your requirements, so do as jFar said, think SOLID and make your own decisions based on principals.
You should also look into MEF for extensibility.
I have a friend of mine who owns his own software consulting business. Most of the stuff his employees work on is .NET related development. He's been out of actual development for many years, and has been focused on building his business. He asked me the best way to get familiar with the whole .NET platform and development under .NET. Is anyone aware of a video training series, or something similar, that's designed to get someone up to speed on all aspects of .NET?
This is the obligatory "port another project into .NET" answer.
My guess is that he doesn't have to cover all of .NET, but a great way to get up to speed with both C# and a significant part of the .NET framework is the C# 4.0 in a Nutshell book. It assumes some programming experience and covers a lot of stuff.
In my opinion the first step is to read a book which covers different parts of .Net Framework. Pro C# 2010 and the .NET 4 Platform is one possible book as it covers different technologies such as WPF, WCF, Linq, Ef, Asp.Net. They are not discussed in depth but is a good resource for getting familiar with current technology stack.
Also, I would recommend actually developing in .Net as is many knowledge comes from the actually doing it.
In addition to the other answers, maybe your friend could sit in on any code reviews, design sessions or even perform pair programming with the other developers once he gets a basic understanding of things on his own. I suppose this could be difficult in a consulting business vs. regular development shop though.
In addition to all of the books and blogs which will be mentioned, I always recommend people start learning with something practical.
When I'm teaching I make up simple exercises broken down into chunks like build a basic database, try simple things like displaying the data, filter the data using drop down, add auto postbacks and update panels, updating the data in the DB. It doesn't take long to get an overview of the basic concepts, techniques and tools when presented with examples. And then it's down to experimentation, imagination, and research!
Buy Visual Studio and an MSDN membership - in case its a startup there maybe various options to reduce this cost (Bizspark/Websitespark)
Go through common walkthroughs - areas to go through are Winforms, Asp.net, Asp.net Ajax in that order. Can go through WCF, Silverlight and other framework options later.
Search the web for 'Azure trial' - supposedly, there is a one month free pass available. Dont know if this is real, but if it is, take it and deploy simple applications on the cloud - learn what Windows Azure and Sql azure are all about. After a while can learn about Appfabric messaging platform as well.
After this, start deep-diving into any areas of the technology depending on project needs.
Channel 9
ASP.NET getting started
Dimecast
DNR TV
more than reading any book what made get started with .NET was doing projects. Start building a web site if you want to learn ASP.NET, you get to learn C# and VB as well like this. Just by reading a book each chapter would take lot of time. Initially you will do lot of mistakes and you will frequently get the dreaded yellow error page. The more mistakes you make, the merrier. My experience with .NET is limited to ASP.NET, C#,LINQ, web services, SQL Server 2008. But it took less than 20 days for me to get to know about all these stuff. Now I am trying to do WPF, WCF, Silverlight projects. IF I read any .NET book now, it wouldn't take much time for me to complete it.
I realy suggest to use a step by step teach your self book. They are good for beginners and have some practices maybe something from SAMS publishing like
Teach yourself c# in 21 days
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Background
A year ago I had to learn PHP in school, I already knew ActionScript3 so it wasn't that difficult, and together with a friend of mine we were the first 2 of our school to learn ourselves OOP in PHP.
It wasn't required but we thought it was important.
Last year I started learning C# and ASP.NET, but I'm far from pro in C# and ASP.NET, I did do some projects for myself, just for educational purposes.
Now a few days ago I started an internship (which should take 6 months) But the company still works with ASP Classic and thus VBScript.
Question
Is it worth having learned ASP.NET and C# last year, start ASP Classic and VBScript now for 6 months and probably after that continue in ASP.NET and C#?
I would like some opinions about this, because I don't know whether I should stay and do ASP Classic, or go and look for another internship where I can do ASP.NET.
Avoid ASP classic. It will reinforce bad programming practices. ASP.NET is only as "pre-made" as you allow it to be. If you want to learn, do not use the drag-and-drop designer; write all your HTML by hand in the VS editor. This will make you a far more versatile web developer, and will also prevent VS from generating "bloat" in your pages. I would also encourage you to explore ASP.NET MVC, because the WebForms model has many complications that MVC avoids.
If you can, look for another internship. I politely, but firmly disagree with your boss.
I don't see a point in learning ASP classic unless you are getting paid to do it. In the case of an internship, the experience gained outweighs the time spent using an older technology.
I wouldn't try using ASP classic in any of my future projects, but you should be fine learning it for your internship.
Also, if you can get a job working in something newer that will help you even more in the future, I'd go with that. Sometimes that's not an option though and you're stuck working with something old.
I think your boss is wrong with what he said, and I don't know why they haven't tried to upgrade over the last decade. While this won't necessarily hurt your career, it definitely won't help it on any significant level (except for the experience).
VBScript will actually be moderately beneficial to know in the future since a lot of systems automation scripts are written in it. This will also help with automating tasks for Microsoft Office, etc.
Get the job, get the paycheck, and move on when you can.
Most ASP work is maintenance these days. If a company is doing active new development in ASP, they should have a pretty compelling reason.
Also, your boss's remark is nonsense.
I'd say you should should avoid it if you can, and continue with ASP.NET (or something else with a pulse). And I say this as someone who started his career in FoxPro for DOS.
I say it can't be a nuisance. ASP will teach you some older technologies, not to say philosophy of doing things that could perhaps bring you on some other interesting paws with your new development. As a matter of fact, having worked with ASP for 6 months will grant you some knowledge which others can only speculate about.
Besides learning or improving your skills in ASP, working in this project you're mentionning might bring you some other aspects that could be worth learning. Any new experience is a step forward to new possibilities.
Learning ASP could at least simply teach you why in ASP.NET and MVC, things are done the way they are, and you'll perhaps better understand the foundations of the most commonly used aspects of these architectures or approach.
Furthermore, when a company will require a candidate that has a minimum of knowledge in ASP to migrate a system in ASP.NET, then should you be the guy? =P
Always look at what a new experience positively can bring you. Almost any new project can teach you new aspects of your work.
I hope this helps! =)
ASP Classic is a very old language. ASP.Net WebForms is much newer and in modern use at many companies. There is an even newer model (newer to the MS world) called ASP.NET MVC. This model shares some aspects in common with ASP Classic, but improves on that old paradigm in almost every way.
You never lose by learning something new, but I think you could get more bang for your buck sticking with newer technologies. Intern with someone using MVC (like StackOverflow) if you want to learn that model.
If you have an option on an internship that better fits what you want to learn, take that instead.
That said, learning more is usually a good thing. Do it, especially if it's only six months. Don't permanently set down roots in ASP Classic, though, because that's going to go away at some point; don't latch on to a train that's already going downhill.
If you know PHP, you already know ASP classic. Yeah, the languages are different, but the important thing (the page model, the lifecycle, what runs when) are the same. The rest is just details of how to call various things in the OS. Well, except that vbscript is kind of crippled.
Also, if they're doing work in ASP, that probably means they've got COM objects (most likely written in VB6) to either call or you'll have to write and deploy. That way lies PAIN.
If you're looking for a realistic work at most IT development jobs, this would actually sound reasonable - there's lots of shops stuck on old technologies. However, it's not going to be that useful on your resume.
He is right in a way - the ASP.NET WebForms model DOES create a huge abstraction over what's actually going on. But if you looked at ASP.NET MVC or another MVC framework like Monorail, you can get the raw HTTP story. But, again, you've done PHP so you've already seen it.
Don't be duped here's a fact: VBScript does not run on the CLR, ASP classic and old IIS are not running in the CLR with ASP.Net's code paths and handlers and huge stack of stuff that I was thoroughly confused by when I went from ASP3 to ASP.Net years ago.
Don't waste your time, what's under the covers in ASP.Net and it's entire design model is so thoroughly different from what's going on in classic ASP, you'll just confuse the whole issue.
In fact, screw all of this, learn wpf/silverlight/xaml and C#, if you can put two and two together with the xaml style of code behind you will have no trouble with asp.net when you need it (or classi asp for that matter), and you will be far more capable of keeping up with what's going on next, rather than starting the journey 10 years ago, it will take a long time for you to catch up to modern times that way.
To some really small extent, your boss is right. Learning classic ASP will help you understand how ASP.NET manages web concepts such as your page's viewstate property for example ; also it will force you to create your own gridview from scratch.
However, the .NET framework is really huge and it can take a fair amount of time to get to know it. A lot of ASP.NET controls helps you save precious time to concentrate on more important aspects of your application. I would prefer to look for an ASP.NET internship and learn ASP on your own if you want to know how some things were down the "old way", i.e. more than 10 years ago (classic ASP was launched by Microsoft in 1996 if I remember correctly).
There's two things I'd add to what's been said here already, though I won't repeat the well-made points in the other answers.
It's completely wrong to say that knowing ASP will give you information about what is under the hood when it comes to ASP.NET. At the level of the two frameworks, its much more likely for knowledge of ASP to misinform you about ASP.NET - some things that seem similar are actually different. At the level below that, you're better off forgetting about frameworks and languages and learning the details of HTTP (see RFC 2616) and then working out how it works in whatever framework you are using.
Also, the real meat in class ASP wasn't ASP itself (which really, is much simpler than ASP.NET) but in COM objects used with it (which can often get much more complicated than the .NET equivalent, esp. when factoring in having to deal with the much more complicated threading abstraction, lack of garbage collection and other things where .NET provides us with new or improved tools).
I recently started playing with C#, but I am finding it very frustrating. It seems every time I want to add what I think is a simple control, I end up either scouring the internet or writing my own. I just feel like I spend more time recreating controls to get them to work the way they should, and less time actually creating applications.
For example: In another question, I asked if it was possible to remove the border on a combobox; something I thought should be built into the control, but alas I had to build my own control for this simple alteration.
Am I just too new to C#/.net, or am I just expecting too much? I know SO loves C# so don't bite my head off for feeling this way, just help me understand what I am missing and whether I should continue learning and working with C#.
I spent 4+ hours today tracking down an 8 byte memory leak in a C++ program. There are threads involved and attaching the debugger would alter the thread timing so I couldn't do even something as simple as breaking on the Nth alloc to see where the leak was. Additionally I knew generally in between which two events the memory was allocated. Unfortunately both threads thought that was a great time to allocate lots and lots of 8 byte size objects. At the end of the investigation I found a ref count error on a COM pointer was leading to the leak.
Not having to pull your hair out over investigations like this is why you should move to C#.
For example. In another question I asked if it was possible to remove the border on a combobox; something I thought should be built into the control, but alas I had to build my own control for this simple alteration.
Of course you can't remove the border on combo boxes. They are Win32 controls and they have to play by the rules of Win32. That inlcudes giving the OS and the user, not the application control over styling.
If you want something you can style completely on Windows then you need to look at WPF.
I think what you really mean is:
Windows Forms on .NET is increasing my development time - am I missing something?
I think you are missing several things:
Open mindedness - with any new programming language comes not only new syntax, but new paradigms. If you come from C++ paradigms such as garbage collection may sound "too automatic" from you and you'd like to have more control but alas, you have to let go. Whenever you jump from one paradigm to another the prerequisite is always the ability to unlearn what you've always known.
Windows controls aren't the same as web controls - I've checked your previous questions and they look like you've been from VBScript, which probably means that you use it either from Office or ASP Classic. That being said your demand for controls that were easy to conjure when you were in the web would be much tougher for Windows -- Windows was not designed to be easily modifiable. That's why WPF/Silverlight was made.
Productivity is a function of ability to learn - There, I said it. It might hurt but, if you have cynicism or hostility blocking your learning process, you will simply not become productive soon. If you've been used to not having to learn new things, you will also not become productive soon. If you think you're really good at learning new things you will find ways to become productive in that language -- and then we can discuss about merits of your arguments vis-a-vis development time.
With any new technology there is a substantial learning curve at first, and some have a higher learning curve then others. I think you will see as you gain more experience that these things become substantially easier. C# has a lot of power with the .Net architecture to leverage from, but a lot of it takes time to really appreciate. C# is also changing and growing to allow for new coding styles (newer versions incorporate a lot of influences from functional programming) that keep it both in vogue and powerful. Stick with it and keep learning.
You're not the first, nor the last developer to have this sentiment. It always seemed to me that every time I needed to do something that wasn't part of a demo, I had to spend hours trying to figure out how to accomplish one small task. Much of my frustration was with ASP.NET web controls.
That being said, I found that once I got over the (steep IMHO) learning curve of control development, many of my frustrations were eliminated. I feel that using inheritance and overriding virtual members to create new behavior is a very clean approach. Plus, it creates output that can be very easily reused. Using OO practices just always seemed better to me than pasting JavaScript snippets all over the place.
Microsoft does a good job of providing many base controls to use out of the box, but every application always seems to need something that's missing. I would recommend learning control development, or looking to third party solutions if possible. There are many companies that exist solely to fill the voids. Either way, I wouldn't judge the whole language based off of the default control set.
It sounds like you are just new to it. It's not C# that's the problem it's the .net framework. If you used VB.net for example you'd likely have the same issue.
I went through this issue when I went from classic ASP to ASP.net. For half a year or so I felt the things I wanted to do in ASP.net were so much easier in classic ASP. Eventually that went away. Now I'm going through it again as I try to learn ASP.net MVC. Things I could do in 5 minutes in ASP.net are taking me days to figure out in ASP.net MVC.
In your case it sounds like you are using windows forms. Were you working with winforms before (i.e. VB6)? If you want more control over styling you might want to look at WPF.
Yes. You are missing something -- experience with the tools you are using.
For example, a few months ago I decided that my next project would be in ASP.NET MVC. I had been doing WebForms for several years and had dabbled with RubyOnRails for a couple of personal apps. MVC fit in with my desire to increase the testability of my apps and I prefer writing my own HTML for the most part anyway.
Despite my experience with ASP.NET, C#, and experience with MVC in RoR, it still took my awhile to match the velocity I had with WebForms. I felt like I had to spend all my time looking for how to do stuff. Now, a few months later I feel like I'm able to develop just as quickly as before. More to the point, I know the various paradigms and can apply them easily when faced with a similar problem to one I've solved before. I'm also building up a collection of extensions, snippets, and components that can be reused over and over.
I suggest that you give C#/.NET a chance for long enough to get over the inevitable early struggle and then decide whether it's the technology that's the problem.
Could it be that what you're trying to do is not, let's say, common? Most GUI developers follow some sort of human interface guidelines so that their application fits in well with the window manager of the OS being used. It helps with the user experience. Most GUI elements are designed with this in mind. So, it could be that you're trying to make your interface radically different than most, and thus, are finding that you have to do some custom work. That would be normal.
Depends on where you are coming from. I find c# to be very effective.
I rarely if ever use other controls as they often do not work 100% to my use cases and they create dependencies on your app.
So when you want to upgrade your project to c# 4 and can't because control X Y and Z don't work in c# 4 ... your SOL.
So I just take the hit up front and write my own controls which causes less grief later.
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I am not that good at programming. I finished my masters degree in electronics. I want to learn C#, the .NET Framework, and SQL. How much time do you think it would take (if I have 5 hours a day to devote to it)? Also, what order do I learn them in? I have Visual Web Developer 2008, is that enough to begin?
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I should have specified that I wish to make a career out .NET Development. I'd like to give myself 2 months to get the 'basics' down. As a developer, what is expected out of you in IT companies? What skillset do they require and what are the responsibilities as a junior or mid-level developer? I don't have any industry experience, will I be able to get a feel of the job duties while at home?
That's like asking how long it would take to learn French:
1 day to learn what it is
1 week to learn it to an infant/elementary level
1 year to be considered a beginner by professionals
Several years to be considered an experienced professional
Plus there's "deep" knowledge of those subjects which a mere mortal such as you or I will never learn
Then again, plenty of people (most normal people, non-programmers) never learn those subjects, so if you're like "most" people then the answer would be "it would take forever" or "it will never happen".
Dive right it, make it a hobby, and have fun :)
Coming from an electronics background myself I can tell you that you should pick it up pretty quickly. And having an electronics background will give you a deeper understanding of the underlying hardware.
IMHO the root of information technology is electronics.
For example..
Think of objects as components.
The .NET framework is essentially drawers full of standard components.
For example you know what a 7400 (NAND gate) is capable of doing. You have a data sheet showing the pin outs and sample configurations. You don't typically care about the circuitry inside. Software objects are the same way. We have inputs and we have methods that do something to the inputs to produce predictable outputs. As developers we typically don't care how the object was written... just that it does what it says it will do.
You also know that you can build additional logic circuits by using two or more NAND gates. This of this as instantiation.
You also know that you can take a NAND gate and place it inside a circuit where you can modify the input signals coming in so the outputs have different behaviors. This is a crude example but you can think of this as inheritance.
I have also learned it helps to have a project to work on. It could be a hobbyist project or a work project. Start small, get something very basic working, and work up from there.
To answer your specific question on "what should I learn first".
1) Take your project you have in mind and break it into steps. For example... get a number from the user, add one to the number, display the result. Think of this as your design.
2) Learn basic C#. Write a simple console application that does something. Learn what an if statement is (this is all boolean logic so it should be somewhat familiar), learn about loops, learn about mathematical operations, learn about functions (subroutines). Play with simple file i/o (reading and writing text files). The basic C# can be thought of as your wiring and discrete components (resistors, caps, transistors, etc) to your chips (object).
3) Learn how to instantiate and use objects from the framework. You have already been doing this but now it's time to delve in further. For example... play with System.Console some more... try making the speaker beep. Also start looking for objects that you may want to use for database work.
4) Learn basic SQL. Lots of help and examples online. Pick a database you want to work with. I personally think MS Access is a great beginners database. I would not use it for multi-user or cross platform desktop applications... but it is a great single user database for Windows users... and it is a great way to learn the basics of SQL. There are other simple free databases available (Open Office has one for example) if you don't want to shell out $ for Access.
5) Expand your app to do something with a database.
Just do it! Don't sweat the details.
Well, it will take you forever. There is so much to learn about programming that 10 years are not enough.
http://norvig.com/21-days.html
Don't get me wrong, you will learn the basics quickly enough, but to become good at it will take much longer.
You should focus on an area and try to make some examples, if you choose web development, start with an hello world web page, then add some code to it. Learn about postbacks, viewstate and Sessions. Try to master ifs, cycles and functions, you really have a lot to cover, it's not easy to say "this is the best way to learn".
I guess in the end you will learn on a need to do basis.
The best thing about C# is that it is very catchy. Easy to pick up, and you'll also have fun doing it.
But .Net framework is a very big library full of wonderful things to discover, and yet again due to the nature of .Net you'll also have fun learning it. It's a coherent, object oriented, well documented library, and C# makes it so simple to work with it that you can simply discover your way through it while coding.
The vast majority of articles, books or resources about .Net and C# simply concentrate on explaining functionality and the framework and far less about how to avoid quirks, workarounds or exceptional cases, like it happens with other languages I don't want to name (*cough C++*) so in the end the experience of learning C# and .Net is very enjoyable from start to finish, and the things you can accomplish using .Net also makes it very rewarding.
You picked a good language to start with, in my opinion, and finally to answer your question, it will take you about:
2 to 3 months to learn the basics
1 to 2 years to become a versed developer
5 years or more to become a expert or, depending on your dedication, a "guru".
But then again, beating the numbers and breaking the limits lies inside human nature. Can you do it faster than this? ;-)
How long is a piece of string? I think this is subjective. I know programmers that have learned an extraordinary amount in a very short time based on the experience that they've exposed themselves to.
Basically, get your hands dirty and you're bound to learn more.
It really depends on what you mean by "learn". You could probably spend a week and get a couple of pages up on the web that had some minimal level of interactivity to save information entered by the user in some database, and then have some other pages for querying and displaying the information. You could then spend the next 10 years of your life learning all the intricacies of the .Net framework, SQL, and mastering using the IDE.
The period of which you are capable of learning really depends on your ability to grasp the logic behind programming while where to learn from depends on your learning style.
If you are a learn-by-a-book type of guy, just jump on Amazon.com and perform a quick search, pick up the book with the best reviews or wait for someone here to recommend a book (I'm not a programming by book guy)
If you prefer screencasts (video feeds demonstrating what to do) or tutorials, then go straight to the source: http://www.asp.net/learn/. There are tons of videos and tutorials explaining everything you need to get started.
Visual Web Developer 2008 Express should be all you need to get started. Basically, the express editions are Visual Studio chopped down to a precise set of functionality to accomplish one thing. They don't have some of the bells and whistles needed for large scale development, but everything you should need.
Can't tell how long it would take, it really depends on your existing knowlege. I managed to learn the C#/.NET 2.0 core basics in about 2 months.
My suggestion to you: Try to learn towards exams, they make sure your learning covers all important parts and also guide you through this new technology. See Microsoft Learning.
If you have any programming experience, you can probably learn the C# syntax in a few hours, and be comfortable with it within a week or so. However, you will not be writing complex structures unless you write a lot of code with it. It's really the same as learning any language: you can learn all the words and grammer fairly quickly, but it takes a while to be fluent.
EDIT
A book you may want to pick up for learning C# is C# in a Nutshell (3.0) which I found to be very useful, and has been recommended by several people here.
If you want to learn, REALLY want to learn, then time is not of consequence. Just move forward everyday. Let your passion for this stuff drive you forward. And one day you'll see that you are good at C#/.NET.
You'll pick up c# fairly quickly (the language syntax is not that complicated). It will take you a long time to really learn the .NET framework, but you'll pick up the heavily used parts of the framework fairly quickly, and you should start seeing patterns in the framework.
My advice to you: don't just learn from a book or website. They will teach you the language and framework, but they will not teach you how to program anything useful.
Writing little code snippets will teach you how to do a very specific tasks, but they do not teach you how to write applications. My suggestion is that you think of an app that might be fun to work on (and doable... e.g. don't think that you're going to write an operating system or crysis or something in a month or two). Personally, when I was learning, wrote my own full featured IRC app, complete with rich text, personal messaging, etc.
The answer in my view is related to whether you have a tangible problem to solve or if you just want to learn for example to be prepared for a possible new job. If you have a problem then you are in better shape. You can start by looking around and seeing how other people went about solving that problem. Languages in general you should be able to pick up fairly quickly (after all you hold an MS in EE, no small feat IMO).
What you need to be on the lookout for is good programming practices. You'll probably see yourself asking "why is this method so small", "why is this method empty and what the heck is this abstract word doing here". That will give you perspective beyond syntax towards good writing.
When I switched careers out of Finance, I took 9 months off to study C++ full-time out of a book by Ivor Horton. I had a lot of support from my best friend, who is a guru, and I had been programming as a hobby since high school (I was 36 at the time).
It's not just the syntax that's an issue. The idea of things like pointers, passing by reference, multi-tiered architectures, struct's vs classes, etc., these all take time to understand and learn to use. And you're adding to that the .Net framework, which is huge and constantly evolving, and SQL, which is a totally different skill set than C#. You also haven't mentioned various subsets of the framework that are becoming more widely used, like WPF, WCF, WF, etc.
You're an academic so you can definitely do it, but it's going to take serious effort for a long time, and you definitely will need some projects to work on and learn from. Good luck to you.
According to Malcolm Gladwell, it will take you 10,000 hours to get really good. So get cracking.
Simple answer: a lot longer than two months. Learning to program competently will take longer than that, no matter what. It took me years to learn to be a competent object-oriented programmer, and I'm good at this stuff.
More detailed answers: it doesn't really matter whether you learn C# or SQL first, as they're very different. I'd probably suggest SQL, as it's easier to learn and more independently useful.
You will have a hard time getting used to the on-the-job realities at home, much as if you were studying plumbing or quantitative finance.
You're going to have a hard time putting all the information together without one or more projects you try to do. You're going to need to have other people to tell you when you're being stupid, when you're being overclever and will pay for it later, and when you're actually getting it.
Try to find an open source project you find vaguely interesting. Study their code. Figure out why they do what they do. Look at the bug list, and try to find something as trivial as possible to fix. Work from there. Learning to contribute is going to teach you things that are useful in the work world, and it will give you something to point at. It will be far easier to get your first job if you have some experience to point to.
All "relativity" aside, not fast. Based on the fact that you said you never programmed before...to become a basic programmer, a few years.
And to become a good to outstanding (using design patterns and industry recognized standards that relate to common standards as defined by ISO/IEC 9126 Standard such as testability, maintainability, etc.) programmer, it takes years of experience and coding often.. you do not become "Sr." or an "Architect" overnight and the same thing is true for a mid-level developer who doesn't code slop.
It's always a process where you improve. So learning is relative. But to learn the basics, seems simple until you start to design classes and interfaces. And even Leads stumble on the basics..doing things wrong. Everyone does. There is so much to be aware of.
If you're just going to be adding features (using classes your Lead or Architect has stubbed out for the team) and not really adding new classes, etc. it's easier....but you should take care in coding using standards and you still have to know complex areas of OOP. But that's not really OOP. When you start to creating classes, interfaces and knowing about inheritance, heap, references, etc. yada yada...and REALLY understanding it takes time no matter how smart you are or think you may be.
So, for a new programmer. Not easy. Be prepared to code a lot. And if you are not, find a job where you are. It's all about coding as much possible so you can get better.
Read these books FIRST. Do not dive into any others out there because they are not geared toward teaching you the language in a way you can get up to speed fast:
http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Object-Oriented-Analysis-Design/dp/0596008678/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231280335&sr=8-4
http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-SQL-Brain-Learners/dp/0596526849/ref=pd_bbs_sr_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231280335&sr=8-7
http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-C-Brain-Friendly-Guides/dp/0596514824/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231280393&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/First-Design-Patterns-Elisabeth-Freeman/dp/0596007124/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231280393&sr=8-3
they will get you the fasted jump start into understanding, better than any books out there.
Also for these lame type of responses, ignore them:
"Then again, plenty of people (most normal people, non-programmers) never learn those subjects, so if you're like "most" people then the answer would be "it would take forever" or "it will never happen"."
Those come from developers (typically leads) who have some Ego trip that DON'T want you to learn. Everyone learns differently and at different paces and eventually you will become "fast". I get very tired of hearing Sr. developers say statements like this when their sh** also stinks many times no matter how good they are. Instead they should be helping the team to succeed and learn as long as their team is working hard to keep abreast and doing what they can on their own as well (not leachers).
Make sure you try to get a Jr. Level Developer position first...
2-3 months to learn the basics...no way. Unless you're gonna code spaghetti sure. Same goes for the 1-2 years. Spaghetti it is then..
Build on what you already know and have a look at lot of job adverts. E.g I have seen jobs asking for WinForms/WPF AND electronics for the writing of a UI to control a custom bit of hardware.
You may find the “robotics” .net toolkit interesting.
.Net is now too big for anyone to learn both WEB and Desktop so you have to decide the way you are going to go. Web has lots more jobs, but there are very few people with good desktop stills.