Reply to: Helping a friend of a friend get into C# - good "getting started" resource?

[d000hg]

As a quick update, I heard the guy spent a couple of days getting set up with Visual Studio free version and some online tutorials with some friends. No idea if it will come to anything but I was told he "seemed more enthusiastic than they'd ever seen" so just having the tools to try and take things into his own hands seems to have been very beneficial.

I'm sure he'd be happy just getting a job at any level in IT, not a £50k/500pd role, so fingers crossed. Thanks for all your advice.

[d000hg]

There's a version 5.0 now? I only just got around to 4.5!

[unemployed]

Hi all,

A friend of a friend is down on his luck; he worked previously in a niche technology (Powerbuilder) and ended up out of work for a long period and in a bad way even to the point of being homeless at one point. He's been unemployed for several years as I understand it and is not only very rusty but totally out of the loop in terms of modern software development.



ps: No it's not Suity.

Thanks for giving me hope

[Jim Spector]

This one looks good



Only takes 1 day to learn it apparently.

[Churchill]

Welcome back! How's the family?

Very well, thanks for asking.

[SimonMac]

www.programinurdu.com

Welcome back! How's the family?

[Churchill]

Some useful free stuff.

Learn C# - Free Interactive C# Tutorial

https://channel9.msdn.com/Series/C-F...lute-Beginners

www.programinurdu.com

[BHicks]

To add another ingredient into the mix DB wise.

The last time I checked, Oracle licensing pretty much allowed you to download almost any of their products to install and use as long as it wasn't for commercial purposes. EG Home tuition etc, go right ahead.

To take the sting out of it, they also have some nifty virtual machine images that come with Oracle DB and Java/Eclipse pre-installed for you (they run like a charm under VirtualBox). This is good as previous Oracle installation processes were a pain in the posterior to be honest.

Nothing to stop you running that as your DB backend/appliance and then using your Visual Studio to talk to that.

[jmo21]

less than £20 for a month of Pluralsighte, plus a myriad of free videos on Channel9 is all he should need in the MS arena.

[Cirrus]

Another option is Webmatrix. This is the Fiat Panda of the .Net world but can leverage all the power of .Net but with low concept count. You get a free copy of SQL Server (Compact) that conveniently is packaged in a single (.sdf) file (to remind you of the good times you had with Access/Jet). Write your code neatly and you could take it over to MVC and go out drinking with the pros. Good C# practice as well.

My main development specialism was Focus. The consultancy I worked with jumped on the Powerbuilder train as a way out of the Focus dead end. I fortunately got swept along by the crowd and found myself on a Programme Manager special. That was a pretty awful journey (extremely crowded and with very lengthy delays) but clearly not as bad as Powerbuilder.

[WTFH]

Also IBM do DB2 Express-C free for dev etc, (Linux and Windows only - have to pay for Solaris/HPUX and AIX) I kind of like it, my Oracle DBA mates get all superior and say it's crap though!

I'd prefer this to DB2:
PostgreSQL: The world's most advanced open source database

[VectraMan]

Or use MySQL as that gets used on lots of web servers.

I found ASP .NET quite hard to get my head around even though I'd already spent 6 months on a C# project.

[stek]

They do indeed and it's called SQL Server Express.

Also IBM do DB2 Express-C free for dev etc, (Linux and Windows only - have to pay for Solaris/HPUX and AIX) I kind of like it, my Oracle DBA mates get all superior and say it's crap though!

[MicrosoftBob]

Murachs books would be a good start for a beginner

[DimPrawn]

Some useful free stuff.

Learn C# - Free Interactive C# Tutorial

https://channel9.msdn.com/Series/C-F...lute-Beginners