I just is in the startup of using ASP.NET (and Ajax). To ease my understanding these links will help through the day:
Browsing Posts in .NET
So, now I’ve actually used the .NET track and C#. I was in the the need of an unpacker, unpacking scene releases (you know all those RAR:ed multi-volume file sets). So I thought it could be nice way learn the Microsoft approach.
My first impression (compared to Java):
- C# is a lot more talkative than Java. There are more keywords to make use of. There are structs and there are classes. Structs are always value types; when passed as an argument a copy is made (copy-by-value). C# also makes use of properties, where Java has its questionable bean approach (setters and getters). Same same, but different.
- I made use of the IO classes of .NET framework (System.IO) for example the
DirectoryInfoabstraction. Here I had to laugh; when I used theEquals()method, no value comparison was used. Having two objects, pointing to the same directory, ended up as false, whenEquals()was applied. Of course I expected the equals method to compare if two directories where the same (and by same I do not mean by-reference). There were only for me to write my own helper functions, which also had to take care of trailing slashes as well, and of course translating to strings and then back to directory infos
- The documentation could be better. Better description of return values, and also input parameters. I feel a lot of arguments are passed as strings, when the actually should be objects of a suitable class. A string is easy to pass, but gives the developer a hell, understanding what to pass in the string. Let i be a pattern, but what type of pattern? Regular expression, or maby a wild card pattern? I still don’t know.
- Using the integrated form editor is not to hard. The default/only layout manager (anchor) does work. Just make sure you know how to revert to an earlier file in case your work goes amok
- GUI controls (WinForms) do lack things like a generic table (or list), where any kind of control can be used as column data.
- The CodeProject is good place for help
