SO i have searched on stackoverflow and there does not seem to be any answers for this. So if you can, What is the best way to actually fully learn silverlight? I have books on it but it seems by the time you get to Chapter 15 out of 30 chapters you already sort of forgot what you learned and have to start again. Trying to jump right in seems more frustrating since you don't have any idea what the tools at your disposal is or how to construct things.
Visit the silverlight website it has a lot of tutorials and samples.
http://silverlight.net/
Find or make up a small project where you can use it. Try and find a friend or someone you know to help you learn.
The only issue with the books is that some of the content gets out of date quickly because of the quick releases!! :)
If you have played with WPF that will help. But if not the best way is to just get your hands dirty with silverlight as quick as possible..
Silverlight rocks!!
PS. Have a look at Pete Browns Silverlight 4 in Action book published by Manning.
http://www.manning.com/pbrown/
I learned by diving in and building an application, along with a book (Matthew MacDonald, "Pro Silverlight 2 in C# 2008", ISBN 9781590599495) and lots of googling, watching videos, www.silverlight.net, and some help from Stack Overflow.
But I guess it really depends on how you learn best, and what you want to do with it.
The basics of it come down to knowing XAML, Blend (maybe), and how to build services.
I found it a steep learning curve, but now have a fairly major line of business app in production. I find that it's certainly a lot more productive than trying to build a similar app using browser technologies (HTML/Ajax/jquery, etc.)
Hope that helps...
http://silverlight.net has a bunch of short "how do I" videos. Watch them with VS2008 open and play along. A book is OK, but Silverlight 4 is just around the corner.
Start by coding a small silverlight application - this would be the best way to learn, hands on.
I jumped right in with a big LOB project. There were books that were suggested to get the team started, but I never read more than the first couple of chapters of any of them. I don't learn as well that way as I do just writing lots and lots of code. It was a little challenging in the beginning but ultimately I've found Silverlight to be easy to use.
If you learn by doing, maybe try some of the tutorials or video demos, but then just write lots of code. Pick a small application and build it.
Got dropped into Silverlight project with short deadline :) Then with "trials and errors" mostly.
But my first step after joining project was this page (already mentioned by others):
http://silverlight.net/getstarted/ . Good stuff there for starters.
It took me three full reads of my first PHP book before I understood it.
Is this the first time you have come accross the likes of silverlight? If you have experience in other languages you will find it a lot easier.
But, my point is that you should not give up. Keep reading and re-read it all again.
I would recommend that you try and follow a book front to back and then try and follow all of the examples. Then code a simple application and when you have finished it, code another. I have coded something, then realised my implementation was awful and then did it again.. you really do learn a lot this way.
I would find a couple of Silverlight Demo apps, and go through the source. Then I would define a very simple project, and as was suggested by others, and code a complete little app. Then I would read the best silverlight book available, that you then would have a much better basis for understanding and remembering. Then I would throw the app away, and do it again with the experience and knowledge you got from the first iteration.
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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
I've been a software developer for 10 years and came all the way from a wild world of assembly language programming, then server side of C++ and COM, and for the last 5 years I was comfortably settled in a quiet world of .NET, C# and development of business applications.
The problem is - the last couple of years was so comfortable and I was also spending almost half of my time doing a BA's work, that I feel like I forgot a good part of low level C# language, Design Pattern and ASP.NET. And after almost 5 years of not using C++ for a big projects my skills in that language are even worse.
That does not mean I can't program - I do it every day and quite successfully - but I feel what I would not be able to pass most of tough job interviews should the need arises, which is very likely in a current recession. And the reasons I think I would not pass - is that I forgot all the standard things what usually people are being asked on the interviews (e.g. I use the design patterns - but if you ask me - which pattern what that - I would probably not give you the correct name, because all he DP for me are just a smart ways of using static functions and virtual functions).
Can someone please point me to a resource or give me an advice (can I have both please?),
how can I quickly (in a week or so) could brush up my knowledge of C#/.NET, DP and ASP.NET to the level of the very good senior dev (whom I was a 2 years ago). As for the C++ - I am willing to spend a month to get my knowledge back again, but this is of less priority.
Please do understand me right - I am not a newbie and all these things I knew before - just want to be back in business 100% again.
Thank you.
For Design Patterns, I would suggest to get a copy of Head First Design Patterns.
Regarding ASP.NET, C# and the usage of some patterns, watching Rob Connerys ASP.NET MVC Storefront Webcasts would be a good start.
What you could also do, is having a look at Scott Hanselmanns interview questions which you can find at his blog. Try to find an answer to all of them and you should be in pretty good shape ;-)
In addition, I'd have a look at the code of some successfull open source projects like subtext, DasBlog, Oxite ...
They are a great learning ressource.
The next step could be to contribute to some of those projects (sending some patches to the project admins), because nothing can replace practice ...
However you should keep in mind, that one week might not be enough time to resharpen your skills.
Good luck anyway
Well, since you knew all this, which I guess means "have used all this" previously,
you could take look back at your own code as a starting point.
Really ask yourself:
why did I do it like this?
when was this, what situation was I in?
can I do it better now?
Take a small tricky and interesting part of the program out, and try to
recode it.
This is all meant to get you mentally back to those times, pick up a few discarded
threads in memory. I find such methods really useful to reactivate knowledge.
Then read up on new developments/best practices on blogs and books and skim through
books that used to be useful to you (maybe there are current editions)
I used scott meyer's "Effective C++..." series to get me back into and
advance my knowledge of c++.
Design Patterns are covered in many books today. The stanard of course is the "Gang of Four" book named "Design Patterns".
Put OO, Agile and Pattern together
Another book is more hands-on and combines Design Patterns with an other new thing -- "Agile Development". The good thing is, that design patterns are presented in live examples and interestingly presented in context. I think Robert C. Martin also brings a lot of insight into many OO development principles. The book is called Agile Software development.
But of course, it depends how far you want to go. Do you really want to brush up your knowledge (then I could maybe give further hints) or do you want to just be upto date for interviews?
I've found that the asp.net videos on www.asp.net/learn are very good for quickly learning about (or remembering) many asp.net topics.
Slides on design patterns in C#
Well if you have some two months to bursh up C++ and design patterns then I would recommend you the following books .
- C++ FAQ Second Edition
- Effective C+++
- Effective STL
I think for C++ this should be sufficient, if you have some more time you can also try
Inside c++ Object Mode
For design Patterns
I think reading complete book at one go is not a good idea.
Try to list down few design patterns from each category creational, structural and behavioral that you have worked on or that you want to talk in interviews.
There are lot of resources on net about each of them and try to completely understand each of them rather than jumping into a book and getting almost lost.
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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.
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My 11 year old son is very interested in programming. He has been working with Scratch
for a couple years but has now outgrown it. I recently helped him install Visual C# Express Edition and he is very excited to work with it, but we're having a hard time finding good resources for him online.
He learns best by looking at sample programs, dissecting them, altering them, etc. Searching around I wasn't able to find many good samples for him to download and try in C# Express Edition. Can anyone point me in the direction of a good set of sample programs for a kid learning C#, or any other resources you think might be good for him?
BTW I'm a programmer myself but I've been almost exclusively working with Linux for a long time, so when it comes to Microsoft I'm pretty lost!
I would recommend Coding4Fun. There are some very nice projects out there which would appeal to an 11 year old. I recall seeing some games, screensavers, and even a sample which shows how to make a WinForms app look like it is bleeding (awesome for Halloween, eh?)
Hmm... given that C# isn't really a "teaching language" (and that's not to say it's a bad choice), I suspect there aren't a lot of tutorials targeted at younger kinds. Have you considered doing some parallel learning and trying to pick up C# with your son? It might be a good bonding experience for both of you, and with your background in programming, you'll likely have a lot of insight to share, even if it's more language agnostic knowledge about things like algorithms, style, commenting, pitfalls to avoid, etc.
If your son has already been working with Scratch and is going to be starting on C# then I would say that he is ready for a regular starting C# tutorial. Teaching programming to kids in general has been discussed several times at SO a few times. Here is one of the better results (How and when do you teach a kid to code). The principal concepts of teaching a kid to program are the same regardless of the language.
Alice is based around story-telling. It's not programming specifically, but it teaching programming mechanisms. Instead of loop, it's more like "Repeat this" type construct. Worth watching the demo video though.
I just found when zapping the web the Kid's Corner from Microsoft, he could have a go on this link as well :-)
Code Project is a good resource, but many of the sample are more complicated than you'd want to start with.
For smaller sample apps, Microsoft released their 101 Samples for Visual Studio 2005
XNA is cool, but is somewhat complicated to get started with.
Coding4Fun is also good, but the amount of content isn't that huge.
For an absolute beginner I would suggest www.codecademy.com. It is very simply written and completely interactive from the very first page load. Very ideal for a 1st timer imho. It teaches in JavaScript not C# but they are pretty similar as far as syntax goes. He might already be too advanced for this though.
Any book written in or after 2008 that states it's C# for beginners on Amazon with positive reviews. Do not buy |BLANK| for dummies, no kid likes it! and keep a maximum price of $30 for $25 you can get a book that will be so great Microsoft might have to hire him, lol jk. i recommend a wrox book but any other book will do. has he coded any program yet, is he doing freeware, opensource or paid. some books are made especially for open source. it might be hard at first, but he will end up coding some really useful programs. Main thing, make him keep going! don't let him quit. In my opinion, it isn't worth quitting; once you got the hang of it coding is really fun.
I've started with C# by joining a Minecraft (link) classic server development team. These were all people around 16+, but they really helped me learning the language. Getting into a team with people around your age who are a bit more experienced helps a lot I think, and I'd definitely recommend it.
First of all, I would love than my daughter would be interest in programming when she come to that age, and for that, congratulations.
Microsoft has Codding 4 Fun which should be a nice start, and if he's interested in Video tutorials, check the ASP.NET Learn website, he will find a lot of tutorials and video tutorials in VB and C# together with all the source code.
After that, code Project is a nice place to look to more examples :)
Good programming!
Code Project comes to mind. Lots of samples, projects, etc. available to play with.
If games interested him (which is a fair bet) check out XNA, otherwise try to find some other interest, for example music, and then look for a framework/SDK that would let you create useful content quickly without having to do too much legwork.
You might be interested in checking out Popfly. It is a system similar to Scratch but if you want you can begin adding your own components or do some extra javascript or C#. The integration of the multiple technologies might be a little too advanced but then again it might be okay. Again this is very close to Scratch but it might be fun.
As mentioned previously definitely check out Coding4Fun.
Congratulations and good luck.
I am a novice programmer who is trying to teach myself to code, specifically in C#. I've taken on a project from a friend of mine and I am not sure what I need to know to get the project done. I suppose the issue is I don't know what I need to know to even get the project started.
I do have many of the basics of object oriented programming, classes, methods and what-not, but when I sit down to code-I don't know where to begin looking to accomplish even basic tasks. I don't know syntax or what the language is capable of with the tools provided. I have read some books, but they mostly seem to be about the concepts and theories about OOP within C# with minimal syntax.
I guess the question is where do I look to learn the syntax-is there some sort of repository of classes and methods that I am missing with examples of how to use the tools it contains? I am stuck in a place of not knowing where to go/look next.
Thanks for any help
Getting started with Visual C#.
One of the things I usually recommend to Junior Developers on my projects who are looking for a better picture of how things work is to get familiar with your F10/F11 keys in Visual Studio by stepping through open source projects written in C#.
Pick something you find interesting from Codeplex or Sourceforge or Google code (there's a topic here about good code to read) and download the source code. Open it in Visual Studio and choose "Debug -> Step Into". From there, let the debugger be your guide through the code.
F11 lets you dig deeper, SHIFT+F11 steps you back a level.
It really can teach you a lot about how functioning code is structured because it leads you through the flow and provides a pretty good tour of functionality in the code.
It also works well with books and other materials because, when you see something you don't understand, you can go looking for a better explanation.
This is something I do myself quite often to familiarize myself with a given codebase, whether it's open source or a paying project with existing code.
I don't use C# myself but for just getting a handle on the syntax of a language as well as basic programming techniques you almost can't go wrong with the O'Reilly books. You might want to check out their Learning C# book.
As a general rule, split the project into multiple task. If you still don't know how to start with each task, then further split it into smaller subtask.
Until you can say, "Ah, I can code this task", do it and move on to the next task.
I started with the C# Station tutorials. "Getting started with Visual C#" gives me the creeps...
MSDN. Go straight to the horses mouth.