I recently started playing with C#, but I am finding it very frustrating. It seems every time I want to add what I think is a simple control, I end up either scouring the internet or writing my own. I just feel like I spend more time recreating controls to get them to work the way they should, and less time actually creating applications.
For example: In another question, I asked if it was possible to remove the border on a combobox; something I thought should be built into the control, but alas I had to build my own control for this simple alteration.
Am I just too new to C#/.net, or am I just expecting too much? I know SO loves C# so don’t bite my head off for feeling this way, just help me understand what I am missing and whether I should continue learning and working with C#.
You’re not the first, nor the last developer to have this sentiment. It always seemed to me that every time I needed to do something that wasn’t part of a demo, I had to spend hours trying to figure out how to accomplish one small task. Much of my frustration was with ASP.NET web controls.
That being said, I found that once I got over the (steep IMHO) learning curve of control development, many of my frustrations were eliminated. I feel that using inheritance and overriding virtual members to create new behavior is a very clean approach. Plus, it creates output that can be very easily reused. Using OO practices just always seemed better to me than pasting JavaScript snippets all over the place.
Microsoft does a good job of providing many base controls to use out of the box, but every application always seems to need something that’s missing. I would recommend learning control development, or looking to third party solutions if possible. There are many companies that exist solely to fill the voids. Either way, I wouldn’t judge the whole language based off of the default control set.