Reply to: Need to learn C# over the weekend

[Weltchy]

Had a contractor a while back who'd just been made redundant from his permie post. To be fair to the guy, he was c++, not c#, but he did enough to get past the client interview. What was telling however was that after the first week with myself and the other established contractors, his knowledge was just not upto scratch. After a couple of weeks, he walked out of the contract and we had to pick up the slack.

A few days after he left, we noticed he'd left a couple of things behind in a bag, the funniest of which was an ASP.Net for dummies book.

The morale of the story is, if your going to blag your way into an interview, make sure you do the homework and get yourself upto scratch quick, less there be other contractors ready to rip it out of you.

[Weltchy]

If he knows Java well then I would hope so. The language itself is easy enough, it's the vast .NET libraries which must take ages to master.

Agreed. What I would say though is that with the .Net Framework, once you become familiar with the most used namespaces, finding what you need becomes much easier.

[minestrone]

Interview has been put back to the end of the week and after 10 hours of drinking on Saturday I never made it off the sofa. Tonight though...

[d000hg]

So,

Did the OP learn C# in a weekend? Or rather, enough to blag his way in?

If he knows Java well then I would hope so. The language itself is easy enough, it's the vast .NET libraries which must take ages to master.

[Weltchy]

So,

Did the OP learn C# in a weekend? Or rather, enough to blag his way in?

[d000hg]

Express versions are quite capable, many companies use them commercially.

I wouldn't go into WPF if you are starting from scratch this weekend, but reading an overview (e.g wikipedia) of WPF, WCF, WWF would be good for your waffling skills... in fact generally reading around will maybe be better in an interview other than the obvious questions about "how is Java different from C#" you can probably find on a website and memorise.

[HairyArsedBloke]

If you want to impress, these are the things that for some reason always crop up in informal c# technical tests:

Access modifiers &c - they are a bit different from Java.
try/catch/finally - specifically the difference between throw; and throw(e);
Dispose() versus destructor
why/how to put assemblies in the GAC

It's a good job I don't contract anymore. I've been using C# for a couple of years now and I couldn't give a sensible answer to any of those.

[thunderlizard]

If you want to impress, these are the things that for some reason always crop up in informal c# technical tests:

Access modifiers &c - they are a bit different from Java.
try/catch/finally - specifically the difference between throw; and throw(e);
Dispose() versus destructor
why/how to put assemblies in the GAC

[Zippy]

if they ask you anything too technical or beyond your weekend cram session, try screwing your face up, wafting a hand in their direction, and swinging you shoes up on the desk in a cavalier dismissal of such a "trivial" question. Should do the trick.

Bad, bad SY01

[suityou01]

if they ask you anything too technical or beyond your weekend cram session, try screwing your face up, wafting a hand in their direction, and swinging you shoes up on the desk in a cavalier dismissal of such a "trivial" question. Should do the trick.

[centurian]

cheers, downloading now.

Take it that the things that version contains are the things I would not need anyway?

Ill probably be happy to get a GUI showing stuff from a DB, few buttons, tree view.

You could easily develop full applications with it.

It doesn't contain things like Installers and source control, but there's no way you'll get that far in a weekend

[ASB]

Don't think the express editions give WPF WCF etc. However there are now time limited preconfigured virtual machines you can download from MS. Might be a better bet.

[MPwannadecentincome]

Good luck!

[suityou01]

cheers, downloading now.

Take it that the things that version contains are the things I would not need anyway?

Ill probably be happy to get a GUI showing stuff from a DB, few buttons, tree view.

WPF is all the rage. XML based with CS code behind, a la ASP.Net. Doddle to pick up and current.

[minestrone]

Yes there are the express editions.

cheers, downloading now.

Take it that the things that version contains are the things I would not need anyway?

Ill probably be happy to get a GUI showing stuff from a DB, few buttons, tree view.