C# learning guide for an ex MFC programmer

[kender]

Folks,

I want to become proficient with C#. I’m aware that it will take no less than 6 months. There’s a desktop app that I want to design and write using the best practices during this time. It’s a real-time data plotter (components from National Instruments Measurement Studio will do the heavy plotting).

I know C++ and used to be somewhat proficient with MFC and COM. However I was staying away from C++ for the last 6 years. I was writing in C (for microcontrollers), VB6 and MATLAB.

Would anybody recommend good books or other resources?
What puzzles me at the moment is the document/view architecture in .NET .

- Nick

[Hack]

Moved To General Developer

[Jenner]

I use VB.NET and NI's Measurement Studio every day. Do you have any specific questions about the architecture?

Honestly, the best way to get started would be any decent beginner's book on C#. Since you're a proficient C++ programmer, it'll be more a lesson in what the core functions are and how they're used more than anything. Most "learn C# in 21 days" type books will explain about 75%+ of the .NET architecture that you'll use every day. Alternatively, you could learn VB.NET. Since they both use the same framework, they are functionally equivalent. Personally, I find Visual Studio's IDE to be considerably more intelligent at handling VB.NET than C#. It's just a matter of taste. C# does after all have more examples posted to the web, so you'll spend less time copy-pasting things into a C# to VB.NET syntax translator.

To fill in the gaps, you have MSDN and these boards. The .NET framework is huge. I've been programming for almost 4 years now in it and there are still esoteric functions and methods in the obscure ends of the framework that I've never explored and it seems I stumble upon some nifty new way of doing something almost monthly.

I recommend downloading the free Visual C# 2008 Express if you don't have a commercial version of 2008 available. I highly recommend using the 2008 version though and the 3.5 version of the Framework. The 1.x version of the Framework is pretty outdated and even though 3.5 is an extension of the 2.0 framework (most external things written for the .NET 2.0 Framework will work fine in a 3.5 application) the new features introduced (like LINQ) are well worth it, especially for measurement.

For Measurement Studio, make sure you are using at least v8.6, since this has .NET 3.5 Framework libraries and download NIDAQmx v8.9 off National Instrument's website for the latest 3.5 support for their instrument drivers.