hello world

Major programming update!

“Major” being hyperbole, of course!

Still, I have purchased the ebook version of Learning C# after seeing a post about a one-day sale O’Reilly was having where you could get any ebook for $9.99. Books on programming are always tricky to use because you have to constantly refer to them while trying to, well, program, so you end up picking the book up and setting it down over and over or start devising creative ways to make the book lay open and flat by using whatever you might have on your desk to weigh it down — staplers, spare keyboards, your cat. The ebook version by design is always flat. In fact, it’s perfectly 2D! This should make my programming efforts a smidgen easier.

Now I just need to gird myself to dive back in.

Me vs. programming, part 2

I set about working on the first actual lesson in C# on the msdn site, which, typically, is the near-mandatory “hello world!” program. The lesson has the code in a little code box (to preserve formatting) and instructs you to paste it into the C# program window and run it.

Except the example code leaves off a closing brace and the code generates an error message instead of running at all.

I’ve already learned more than the lesson intended thanks to its inept execution. However, skimming through the remainder, the phrase “you get what you pay for comes to mind” so I am mulling over other sites/lessons/books before jumping back in. I should still have more to report shortly, though.

10 PRINT "BLOG ENTRY ENDS HERE"
20 END
BLOG ENTRY ENDS HERE

Me vs. programming

Before letting Mavis Beacon beat me about the head some more for my lack of touch-typing skills, I thought it might be fun to try my hand at programming again.

Over the years I have dabbled a bit in some Basic, coded HTML, made a few stylesheets and wrangled with an SQL file or two, so I’m not completely wet behind the ears. What I am, however, is no longer 12 years old. That means a couple of things. For starters, I am old enough to be adept at a few tasks and so trying something new is bound to leave me a little impatient at getting to the results. I got through the same thing with jogging by using a nine week plan that carefully ramped up the effort needed, so I was always seeing progress meted out. The other thing is by being older my mind is perhaps a wee bit less pliable than it once was. That whole “old dogs/new tricks” thing. I’m not quite ready to assume my brain isn’t up to retaining brand new information, though.

Tonight I started by downloading the MS Visual Basic 2008, Visual C# 2008 and Visual Web Developer 2008 Express editions. I chose Windows Development Tier 1 as my starting point and watched the introductory video, which was basically, “This is a computer and it does stuff. Soon you will make it do stuff!”

By next week I expect to be writing incredibly awesome Windows applications, of course.