Comment by tracker1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tracker1 | Hacker News Reader

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Okay, where do you start in Learning C#? What do I have to install? What should I install?

Even those are complex questions with a few answers. I started with C# two decades ago with the command line compiler and a very large book. There was really only a single option, and since I didn't have MSDN access, no beta VS for me.

Today, I would suggest that a developer start with .Net 5 and VS Code, with the extension installed. Walking through the `dotnet` CLI. Unfortunately, getting started like that is convoluted with two decades of information/tutorials etc that will not directly apply, or be difficult to walk through.

For that matter, having followed .Net Core from the initial versions, it's been somewhat painful. Figuring out how to migrate/update web applications hasn't been anthing resembling transparent or consistent, and some things are just plain difficult to figure out along the way. There is a crap ton of secondary knowledge you need to be able to do a lot of things that are just easier in other platforms/languages.

Add support for an Authorize header with an RSA signed JWT token to your API.. go ahead... in Node, it took me a couple hours... with .Net Core having well over a decade of experience with C#, it took me the better part of 2 weeks to get things working the way I wanted to. All the tutorials were for older interfaces/apis etc. It was just ugly to say the least.

Hell, if MS would just standardize on keywork formats for thinggs... #dotnetcore3 or similar so that search terms via google could give you more relevant results... that just doesn't happen.

Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate C#, and .Net ... .Net Core itself had me working with .Net again with interest after years of migrating solutions towards options that are easier to write, containerize and scale.

I'm still more inclined to reach for Node or for that matter, to push for Go or Rust, at least it's a consideration again.

But it is anything but something easy to get started with, or for that matter, upgrade projects with. Python 2 to 3 was a cleaner migration option.

Have you tried the dotnet site: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/

It explains everything, including how to get started for every scenario, and answers to every question in all of your comments here.

If the argument being made is ".NET isn't a language", and the response is "okay, then how do I install C#?" Linking the dotnet website probably doesn't advance the idea that C# and .NET aren't tied together.

How do you install Java? First thing you'd do is download the JDK. Is the JDK a language? No, it's not.

That's a fact, not an argument. And who said that C# and .NET aren't tied together? You install the runtime/SDK to get started with the overall environment, similar to many other programming stacks.

Books. I don’t understand this recent move to videos/blog posts. They are pretty much terrible as a base for a new language/platform, and often say incorrect informations.

A not too old (~2-3 years) book on the topic will explain everything in an easy to digest way, and it is much more likely that the author actually knows what he/she talks about.

> Okay, where do you start in Learning C#? What do I have to install? What should I install?

Visual Studio Community Edition 2019.

Done.

edit: I would encourage using regular .Net, not .Net Core until they've reached a certain threshold.

> I would encourage using regular .Net, not .Net Core until they've reached a certain threshold

This is terrible advice. .NET Framework has so many gotchas in its dependency management and binding redirect hell, not to mention ASP.NET 4.x is full of hidden "magic" and serious usability problems.

Anyone starting a new project should be on .NET 5/Core, and that's been true since the Core 2.x releases. Also, the generic hosting model[0] is a productivity game changer and gives you a complete batteries-included experience no matter the project type.

[0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/extensions/gene...

woah, I was a pretty expert C#/.NET developer until about 5 years ago, when I switched to Python and C++ for my dayjob. I've not kept up with the ecosystem since then. .NET Core was sort of in its infancy, and we were debating moving over at the point when I left that company, so I've never used Core.

but ...I can barely read that page and understand what's going on!

This is something I did notice with the c# codebases I worked on; you could date them to the month based on whatever "hot shit" patterns were used by each project. I thought this was normal for every language, but since working on large codebases in other languages, I've found that it's mostly a C# thing (Java has a bit of that too).

But man, it's insane how much the language and the ecosystem has changed in 5 years.

There is no "regular .NET" anymore.

It's just .NET 5, a cross-platform framework that is the next version of .NET Core taking over as the single framework.

Also... "I don't see an option to create a web project." or "Where's the project to start a video game" ... There's lots of bundle options in the VS installer that someone may not understand, and if you install the kitchen sink, you may well fill a 256-512gb ssd.

Or... I'm running a Mac.

VS for Mac is becoming an actual native app in the upcoming VS 2022, so progress is at least being made there!

I would consider .Net 5 that threshold... there's no more Core, fyi. As for VS Community, if someone is getting started in C#, I'd suggest VS Code and learning the CLI tool before jumping in on the IDE bandwagon if only to learn the platform better in getting started.

> I'd suggest VS Code and learning the CLI tool before jumping in on the IDE bandwagon if only to learn the platform better in getting started.

I absolutely hate most CLI tools and C#'s is no exception. I'm happy to say that I have never, in any of my time developing, been in a situation where I absolutely had to use one for C#. It's made me very happy.

.csproj's and .sln files are such a better design pattern for project management than raw folders that I wouldn't torment someone by requiring them to learn that alternative model when any good C# IDE will do all of that for them.

Same with Java.

If you want to require someone to learn everything CLI, then they should probably be learning a different language, to start.

In a similar tone, if I was teaching someone Python, I would start them with running `python` and then just ... typing commands. I wouldn't teach them if __name__ == __main__ until later on. Same reason. Unnecessary complexity for the kind of work they're doing.

When you start wanting to configure CI on Jenkins (not TFS, because TFS handles all this for you, too), then the command line has any value for C#, imo.

And if you're targeting Docker deployments on Linux? Or have developers on Linux or MacOS laptops?

Sure doesn't sound like beginner C# questions at this point, eh?

I'm sorry but it definitely does, there are plenty of developers using Linux coming from language set (a,b,c) trying to pick up language 'c'. I would consider myself a beginner for language 'd'.

I was specifically thinking about the Docker part of the question when it was asked.

I certainly wouldn't encourage the first thing someone does when writing C# be "create an application that will run in a Docker container". Running locally and getting one's feet under them seems like a better first step.

It is valid, though, that the Linux development experience for C# is worse overall. If you're using Linux, though, your options are greatly reduced, though, so life becomes easier. You're either developing for Mono or .Net Core.

As I wouldn't recommend developing in C# for a Linux developer, in general, though, but that is my bias against .Net Core speaking out.

If someone's a Unity Developer on Linux, I would recommend MonoDevelop or whatever Unity's recommended IDE and pipeline are.

If you're experienced with other languages, you are... Also, there are plenty of beginners with Macbooks.

Is it bad that I would steer someone away from learning C# if they're on a MacBook, unless they're learning Unity? And then I would recommend what Unity recommends.

Depends on why they would be learning C#

I do most of what I do with C# in WSL with VS Code (WSL Remote) ... because that's where I do most of my Programming. Where I work, pushing towards most of what we write to be able to deploy/operate in Linux/Docker environments. Doesn't make C# less of a language for the teams that have over a decade of experience with C#, but it is a mindset shift.

The bigger issues I have are with the framework and that it's very difficult to search for working paradigms as framework apis and interfaces have dramatically changed in a lot of areas the past few years. I like the dotnet cli better than what was before it... that said, it's still got a lot of rough edges.

And getting started, especially when you are experienced in other platforms, isn't always easy... even experience from .Net framework to newer runtimes has been painful in the past.

Per the last versions of .net vs .net core that I worked with (4.....6.2(?) and .net core who even knows), I definitely agree with the frustrations.

That's a major reason why, when I answered the top question, I was responding in a way to reference a new developer. I don't think they should be required to think of all of that hell, so I just wanted to point them to a particular library and to just live with it until they're asking the hard questions and have to move to something more complicated. For beginner-beginners, that shouldn't happen for a while.

Someone higher up said that this post should have been titled something like .NET for Professional Beginners, developers that already have a lot of experience and are wanting to develop a single, specific, advanced usecase, or a use case where they are required to work with .net core, it was like that.

I ran into something similar at my present job, trying to set up a webserver in Kotlin. It reminds me a lot of the woes I have with .net core with the numerous, almost adjacent, but not quite in the same package gradle packages.

At this point, I'm not sure there's very many batteries fully included languages left. C# was kinda the last bastion of it. Elsewhere someone, maybe you?, referenced PHP, but even that isn't batteries included. The only batteries included are the ones that PHP is good at, webservices.

Python is all about packages, and it just went through async hell, where the syntax for async changed over and over again over each version, so Google searching, as you mentioned struggling with in other threads, can be painful there, as well.

Ruby requires you to learn Rails (which isn't Ruby! it's written in Ruby but not part of the base framework!)

...

I guess Go is probably the closest to general purpose with its default framework.

I'm relatively familiar with .Net (been using it since late 2001), that said, it's changed dramatically, more so in the past 3 years than nearly a decade before that. The changes between Framework 4.x to Core 1, 2, 3 have been somewhat dramatic and painful trying to keep one application current (that needed portability, including rpi). Hopefully the move to .Net 5 will be less painful.

I'm mostly playing devils advocate as it's not been a smooth transition and the best way to do many things has changed since some things are in the box, that didn't used to be, but still rough around some edges.

Many libraries and patters for web api projects are a bit different, better but different.

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