Sponsored by BoysStuff.co.uk
Sponsored by BoysStuff.co.uk
Programming on the computer is something for nerds; only people with no friends do it, so why bother? Apart from being "for geeks only", programming is bloody complicated, you need expert tools that cost a million, and there's no fun to be had. So, skip this article.
Since I am writing still, the above might not be true, in my opinion. Either that or I am a nerd indeed. I happen to think that programming can be quite rewarding, if you are lucky, you can even make money with it. Programming isn't much harder than learning an easy foreign language, and thanks to Microsoft, you can use some very good free (yes indeed, Microsoft and free in one sentence!) programming tools if you want to get started. And of course, you get my help as well; as I try to help you get started.
What do I need?
About this course
Getting helpWhat do I need?
Not long ago I told you, you can use pretty good free programming tools from Microsoft, to get started. Here's what I mean, and where you can find it. If you are a full-time student, you should check out this site, where Microsoft offers their professional development systems for free to all students in the world. Many schools are listed, but even if your school or university is not listed, you can get an ISIC-registration and use that for registration. You can download Visual Studio 2008 Professional from this site, a fully working professional programming environment.
If you're not a student, but still want to follow along with me, you should check here. Here you can download visual C# 2008, a somewhat limited version of the above, but still good enough to get you started with.
Furthermore, you will need a brain that is still functioning, so stay away from that whiskey, will you? In fact, if you have any whiskey, you'd better send it to me. To lead you not in temptation. I, on the other hand, have this rare medical condition, where my brain needs lots of whiskey in order to function in a normal way! Really, I'm telling the truth here!
And, believe it or not, you won't need anything else for starters. So, let's get going.
About this course
You might be wondering what you will learn here, and why I decided to teach C#, and not C++ or Java or whatever comes to mind. This is not a course to teach you to quickly come up with some "Hello World" kind of program, although you will learn just that. I will try to teach you the concepts of object oriented programming, designing and writing programs in a way that will make it easy for you to maintain them at a later date, to re-use parts of what you write in other programs, and to help you develop a programming style that would not be misplaced in a professional setting. Much of what you will learn here can be translated to any programming environment you wish. To accomplish this task, we will start of with console applications, rather than windows or web based applications. This will help you to focus on the coding part of it, rather than be distracted by fancy windows kinda stuff. Of course, once we understand the basics, we will start on fancier stuff.
So, why C#, and not another language? Personal preference for one thing. I kinda like the language. C# forces you to use clean object oriented programming, whereas C++ allows you to revert to C-style structural programming. Java was another option of course, which also forces you to use object oriented programming. This course could just as well have been about Java, but I like the Visual C# IDE much better than anything I found for Java.
By the way, don't worry if you don't know the differences between object oriented and structured programming at this point. We might discuss this at a later stage. Many programmers happen to think that object oriented programming is better, allowing easier ways to re-use and maintain your code, the code should be more readable, and thus less error-prone, and some more reasons I can't think of right now.
Getting help
When working through the coming tutorials, you might think you need some help every now and then. If you write questions you might have to use this address , I will try to answer your questions as soon as possible. So, let's start programming now.
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