Begining C#, books and other things!
 

So this is a thread about where you started in C#... Without any further waiting:

RobEasy:
Well I started with general programming way back in the mid 90's, C++ and the like, but I was too lazy to find resources. So I put programming on the back burner. While in HS off and on I would find my way back and forth looking at programming with no sort of direction. University got me back into C++ but I was a horrible student and once again it hit the back burner.

I leave that school for broader horizons, and I find myself in a technical school with all sorts of stuff to learn. I took an intro to programming (VB.Net) which ws cool, got my express editions form msdn, and started to attempt to program solutions. Later on, well, within a few months of doing that, I figured that C# was going to be the wave of the future.

So, I went online searched for tutorials and got started with those. My experience hasn't been all that great as my main problem now is getting the command line compiler to work, but thats another question for another day. I soon realized that I would need some books. I sought out the amazon and found prospective materials, and I also downloaded the standard ECMA document #334 (C# Language specification).

So that's where I am right now, reading the language specification and waiting to get some books in.

Tell me, where did you start with C#

I picked up C# after learning tons of other languages, after highschool and college... learned it on my own through trial-and-error. Use it daily at work and for personal projects, in addition to several other languages. Google and books go a long way.

The only C# I mess with is on my trumpet.

Lets see,

Started programming probably mid 80's in Basic on my ZX Spectrum, moved onto Pascal on a PC through College (UK College, not US College) C at University, COOL:Gen for work (for a while) now doing some Cobol for work, and doing C# for fun when I need a program to do something... picked up C#, well to be honest it didn't need picking up, it works pretty much like every other language I've programmed with since Pascal, just a slightly different syntax and some different words here and there, but basic principals are pretty much the same (C# is slightly more complex with the objects but).

Objects are only tough because wannabe high-priests say they're more than your supposedly acolyte brain can deal with. That's BS. They're just things, in a package, to keep the pieces handy. Oog (inventor of the wheel), Henry Ford, and many others, used them without thinking to whimper, because no one told them they were special or difficult.

>Tell me, where did you start with C#
At the beginning, of course. :)

How unorthodox!!! It's much more effective to just begin at the end!

>How unorthodox!!! It's much more effective to just begin at the end!
It's was hard to begin at the end when they hadn't written it yet.

Nahhh, you just invent the end, yourself, and make them thar suckers invent the beginning to match. Sheet, just tell 'em you're the high priest and they don't get to kiss your ring if they don't get it right.

Some really interesting answeres.

Too All:

Are the reference materials like the language specifications (i.e. similar to the one I am reading) valid or are they just paper-weights in your opinion?