Where do you go for information?

[PaulYuk_MS]

Last question from me most likely:

Where do you go for information (for your technology, for your solution, for your business)?



PS: THANK YOU all for outstanding questions and thoughful discussions. You can always find me/us hanging out in our team blog and sometimes in the forums.

[masfenix]

I am slightly confused on what you mean, but for help I would usually google it.

For example, today I was making a custom profile class by inherting the profile class from .net 2.0
I had a date field which i needed to convert to varchar in my sproc. All I did was type in MSSQL DATE CONVERT in google, and voila I was given 1000's of pages on what to do .

Ofcourse the answer was simple, its simply the Convert () function hehe.

when I need information on how something works, I would usually go to msdn. For example I will be coding a file upload later on, and i know I will go to the MSDN for the sample code to use :)

[Paul M]

First thing i do is probably go to google and search, once the search is completed i specifically look for MSDN documentation, links to CodeProject, CodeGuru or other big developer community sites (since i find they are most helpful). If i find nothing i come here do a search and if there is nothing ill ask a question in the appropriate forum.

[PaulYuk_MS]

Thanks Masfenix, your answer is exactly the kind of thing we're trying to understand.

When you say MSDN, are you talking about the main msdn.com site, the msdn.com/vbasic dev center, or otherwise?

[PaulYuk_MS]

Paul M - what big developer community sites do you look at?

[masfenix]

WIth MSDN, I find the articles too boring, well only because I have better things to d oin my years of beeing a teenager haha.

I usually just go on the library. Search up the class name and work with that.

[masfenix]

* sorry I cant edit post.
I also hope that the code provided in the library would be vb, even though most of the time it is, Ive found a few examples which wernt, and they were too hard for me to convert.

[PaulYuk_MS]

I can see how a lot of (blah, blah, blah) text can be boring. What about these short How To videos? e.g. go to msdn.com/vbasic/, click on Learn, check out the videos...

[RobDog888]

I go straight to msdn as I dont want to waste my time with google returning all kinds of diluted links. I want the function's definition and a code example, thats it period. :D

I would like to recommend if you could send feedback to whomever is in charge of the msdn code examples if they could provide vb.net examples to and not just C# (although I can usually convert them but its an extra step and the documentation follows the C# code example so its harder to follow)

[RobDog888]

I can see how a lot of (blah, blah, blah) text can be boring. What about these short How To videos? e.g. go to msdn.com/vbasic/, click on Learn, check out the videos...
The videos are actually better IMO then a long written code example as you get the extra benefit of the hosts extra voice comments about the topic. Plus any specifics that usually wont get added to the textual documentation and of course you get to se the code in action. :thumb:

[Kasracer]

I always go to Google first. If it's something I'm not sure of, Google helps return forum posts and articles about the exact topic I search for.

If it's something I already know but I need to know how it works, I always go to the MSDN... but through Google. I've found I get better and easier to read results from google when I type "MSDN" plus the class/namespace/method I am looking for. Don't get me wrong, I love MSDN but the search, IMHO, doesn't return the most readable or useful results like Google does.

After that, if I still need help, I'll consult a fellow developer or search on forums like VBForums or CodeGuru.

I would like to recommend if you could send feedback to whomever is in charge of the msdn code examples if they could provide vb.net examples to and not just C# (although I can usually convert them but its an extra step and the documentation follows the C# code example so its harder to follow) I've never run into anything on the MSDN that didn't have an example in at least VB and C#. What are you running into that only has C#? Articles as opposed to documentation?
* sorry I cant edit post.

Why not? I just edited this one :D

[PaulYuk_MS]

Good points. We're working on equalizing the vb samples .. you should see some progress already. Plus there's folks like BethMa working full time on exclusive kick butt VB content ;)

[Paul M]

Paul M - what big developer community sites do you look at?

Well as mentioned, codeguru.com (http://www.codeguru.com/), codeproject.com (http://www.codeproject.com/) are the two main ones that have been of most help to me (their articles specifically).

Otherwise if i see a link to an old resolved thread in the MSDN forums or VBForums i will always have a look.