Where to Start Learning

[ready2learn]

Hello

I am trying to figure out what suggestions are out there to start software development.

Anymore you see Visual Studio 2005/2008, C#/VB, ASP, Framework 2.0/3.0/3.5, WPF, LINQ, on and on and on.

It is very intimidating on where to start. I have decided to work with VB as I have some VB 6.0 experience. I have had a tough time learning OOD and wrapping my head around that. Let alone that, there are so many buzz words and exactly where to start is killing me.

I am looking for any professionals that can point me in the right direction or shed some light on where to start.

I have set some goals and would like to be able to develop software at a professional level within the next year. I have technology background, I am just looking for suggestions on resources and direction.

Any help would be fantastic.

 

[Stonkie]

What I do whenever I get to learn a new technology is to get my hands on some project of small size and start coding right away. No ceremony, no books or whatever. Just to get the hang of that programming language. The project obviously has to be small so within a week or so, I've learned enough keywords and stuff to be functional.

Then I read a reference book that will tell me the stuff I missed so I can actually be productive within about 2-3 months. That's how I went to VB.NET and then C#. However, I had a Java background and already knew about object oriented and what a static method is for example.

I find Apress books pretty useful : http://www.apress.com/

Also, if I were you I would concentrate on .NET 2.0 first. You can leave WPF, LINQ and all that 3.5 stuff for later as the technology still isn't as widely used as Windows Forms and ADO.NET. You are much more likely to find a job that requires the last ones than the first ones for still some time.


WARNING, I could be totally wrong below...

One thing I read somewhere and I must admit I cannot validate the info is that when you use VS 2008 to develop a .NET 2.0 application, the IDE only hides the unavailable assemblies. That means if they solved any bug or changed anything between the .NET version in an existing assembly, it is possible that you would get problems when deploying to a machine with only the .NET 2.0 assemblies because you expect the new behavior...

 

[mbb]

Hello

I am trying to figure out what suggestions are out there to start software development.

Anymore you see Visual Studio 2005/2008, C#/VB, ASP, Framework 2.0/3.0/3.5, WPF, LINQ, on and on and on.

It is very intimidating on where to start. I have decided to work with VB as I have some VB 6.0 experience. I have had a tough time learning OOD and wrapping my head around that. Let alone that, there are so many buzz words and exactly where to start is killing me.

I am looking for any professionals that can point me in the right direction or shed some light on where to start.

I have set some goals and would like to be able to develop software at a professional level within the next year. I have technology background, I am just looking for suggestions on resources and direction.

Any help would be fantastic.

I found the the book "Head First Design Patterns" to be really good at breaking in me into writing object orientated code.

 

[Stonkie]

I bought that same book a few months ago. Haven't had the time to read it yet, but it seems like a really good book! Just have to go through Rapid development by Steve McConnel first