This blog has moved

So I got this blog going on WordPress and was pretty happy with the ease of setup, configurability, etc.  And then I discovered, after I wanted to format some source code nicely for my third post, that WordPress wanted me to pay for the privilege of editing my blog’s CSS.  Being the cheap guy that I am, I’ve now moved the blog to Blogger, where I can play with CSS to my heart’s content and not pay a dime.  Hope to see you there.

Hello, World! – again

In 15 Exercises for Learning a new Programming Language, Prashant Mhatre kicks off with:

First of all, get familiar with Compiler, compiler option, editor shortcuts or integrated development environment (IDE). Start with a simple ‘Hello World’ program. Compile it. Use basic functionalities of debugger like setting break points, printing variable values, moving to the next or specific position, stopping debugger etc.

Let’s jump straight into the code first.

Where to begin?

So the first thing to do when learning a new language is obviously to find some reference materials. In this post I’ll look at C# references.  I’ll leave .NET to later, when we start to get into it.

C# was created by Microsoft so the logical first place to go would be the MSDN Library.  As typical in MSDN there’s a full reference, including tutorials and the language specification.

A quick Google search turns up a large number of on-line tutorials and reference cards, a few of which are:

• C# Station tutorial
• Softsteel Solutions C# tutorial
• FunctionX has tutorials for each version of the C# language to date: 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0
• C# Basics Reference Sheet from </dream-in-code>
• Core C# and .NET Quick Reference
• C# Syntax Reference Card

I’ll link some of these in the side-bar as I use them.

As well as a language reference it’s also a good idea to have an idea of how you want to learn.  For me, I learn best by doing.  A month-or-so ago I heard, I can’t remember where, about a blog post detailing the 15 exercises the author went through in learning a new language.  In searching for this post last week I also found a series of follow-up posts by another programmer with some more advanced exercises.

So I figured it would be a good idea to work through these exercises myself, and document it all here.  As I complete each exercise I’ll blog about it, including the code, and highlighting the aspects of the language learned in the exercise.

I also have an idea or two for a couple of actual projects that I’d like to complete, but more about that later.

Next time I’ll be getting started on actual code.