Home/ Questions/Q 862899
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-15T09:13:08+00:00

All my past programming experience has been in C++ on VS2003/8, Mostly service based

  • 0

All my past programming experience has been in C++ on VS2003/8, Mostly service based and completely self taught.

2 Years ago I had to create my first real GUI app and (Foolishly) choose MFC.
I got the app working but it took a long time & was a bit of a nightmare to learn MCF (and its many shortcomings) but I ended up with a reliable workable app which was difficult to change or extend.

Again I have to create another GUI app more complex than the first and again this will be created from scratch and will only ever be used on windows.

I had put off learning C# for a long time but not wishing to re-visit MFC have decided that the new application with be birthed in VS2010 and WPF 4 will be the midwife.

Trying to avoid the several expensive (Time wise) mistakes I made previously. Im looking for for good books/tutorials on the current versions of C# 4 & WPF 4 and also general advice on the best approach.

The application will do several things one of them would persisting info in a SQL DB. So Im thinking LINQ for that?

Please chip in…

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    i’ve been using .Net from when it was a Beta and it has been a wonderful thing seeing it evolve to what it currently is. I can assure you that you are making the right decision!

    You will be using LINQ not just for SQL, but anywhere in your code (where performance is not critical).

    So, here are some resources i found best over the years..

    C#

    • Programming C# by O’reilly – great
      for beginner to mid level
      programmers. quick read covers all
      the basics.
    • For the most In-Depth disection of
      .Net framework 4.0 CLR Via C# –
      Jeffrey Richter This book is not only
      interesting, but gives amazing
      insight into why 4.0 has the features
      it has and how it works under the
      covers.

    LINQ

    • besides a ton of online resources,
      there is LinqPad. Amazing app that lets you see/modify just about every style of linq programming there is
    • There is also Entitiy Framework, which
      replaced LinqToSql, but I wouldn’t
      recommend starting with that. Lots of gotchas (at least in 3.5 when i used it)

    WPF

    if you prefer watching demos, channel9.msdn.com , and MSDN webcasts are a great resource. Ton of stuff there. (be sure to search past events)

    • 0