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Closed 10 years ago.
I don't work at a software company, but have taught myself C# and have been using it fairly regularly. Now another engineer in the office (not a software engineer) has expressed an interested in learning to code like I can. I'm helping him through some simple console applications, but he's having some trouble grasping all the OOP concepts. He's an engineer so he's had experience with procedural programing in school, but the concept like objects, classes and instances are really challenging him.
I suggested he get the Head First C# book, but I was also wondering if anyone knew of any good tutorials on line that explained OOP principles. He's using C# but it really could be language agnostic. Also something with a lot of pictures and diagrams would be the most helpful.
I don't know how much he knows already, but I remember having a hard time switching from procedural to OO too. It took me a long time to figure out (in VB that was) Label1.Caption = TextBox1.Text but once I got that, a whole new world opened before me, although it took a while to get to actually creating classes and think about stuff like inheritance.
I don't know a book, but if this guy knows procedural programming and he's struggling with the same concept as I mentioned above, maybe a few metafores could help. It's almost as good as a diagram, or even better. ;)
If you compare an object to a device, let's say a cell phone, it would make sense how each different cell phone is an instance, while all cell phones of the same model have the same class. Accordingly, the buttons and/or the software on it could be seen as methods. You got a method dial(phonenumber), and you got properties, like a list of contacts. Each phone of the same class has the same properties, although the values can differ. Everyone's got different contacts in their phone book.
This is just a silly metafore, but I'm sure you can make up some other ones for other OO concepts.
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Closed 10 years ago.
Do you think that its a good practice to learn Objective-C as a first language/library, or should I just jump back a little and start learning in another C type language?
I've been self-learning Objective-C for about 4 months now. I absolutely love it, my friends and family also support it as well.
So, what do people here think about Objective-C as a first language to learn? Is it worth it to continue with my work with Objective-C?
I think Objective-C can be a fine first language, particularly if you're interested in doing Mobile programming. I wouldn't necessarily recommend switching to learn a different language, but if you really want to learn how to program I would recommend learning as many languages as you are comfortable learning. Many different languages have different ways of thinking about problems, different benefits, and different cultures, and exposing yourself to the different ways of doing things in other languages will make you better in whatever language you end up in long term.
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Closed 9 years ago.
So after having read a few different Big Nerd Ranch texts, as well as seen Paul Haddad of Tweetbot fame more or less say that he doesn't use Interface Builder, I've come to the conclusion that for one reason or another, there's something wrong with it?
I personally find myself gravitating toward Interface Builder solely due to my background with Visual Basic. It's easier, it's faster, and just (for me) far more pleasant to work with.
In the end, though, my question is this: Is there some reason due to efficiency (either through performance of the final app or in the development process) that developers gravitate toward programmatically designed UI's over the Interface Builder-generated counterpart?
Thank you.
Interface Builder can be fiddly at times, and until recently you couldn't do anything remotely complex with it in terms of laying out UI elements relative to one another. Since you'd have to dip down to code to do that, many people just do everything in code.
However, with the advent of AutoLayout and its amazing integration with Interface Builder, that may change.
I personally feel that you can manage your code better by coding the UI yourself.
Interface builders can be used to build GUIs quickly, and allows you to experiment without having to know the intricate details of all the GUI components supported by your pl.
Best approach would be to mix these two approaches, build quickly using the interface builder, then move the code around as you like.
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Closed 10 years ago.
MonoTouch is great for cross-platform app development. This makes a very strong business argument and I am on verge of developing using MonoTouch with prospects of branching into Android and WinMo. Before starting commercial development in MonoTouch I want to ask one last question, just in case I've missed something critical in my research so far:
What do you think is the biggest drawback of MonoTouch as compared to Objective C?
Barring games development, use whatever context comes to your mind.
Thanks
Steph
UPDATE: Following link probably best answers the question: http://docs.xamarin.com/ios/about/limitations. Conflict of interest is that it comes from Xamarin. Thanks to everyone who contributed!
In my opinion MonoTouch is just great, if you are an c#-developer. You can use almost everything from the full .net-framework and it works like a charm.
Your app gets a bit bigger in a meaning of filesize and you are at the mercy of Xamarin. The only real drawback I have found until now is that you have to change a lot between xcode and monodevelop IF you use the interface-builder. As I don't use the IB that wasn't a big dealbreaker for me (I don't use the visual studio designer either...)
If you know c# and would have to learn Objective-C -> go for MonoTouch!
If you don't know both, it might be a good choice to learn the "real way" to code native apps. Btw. you need some knowledge of Objective-C or iOS-development in general. So you know how to use Views and ViewControllers, what's the names of the methods and so on.
UPDATE: To answer your questions in the comment. The farest I have gone by now, was kinda migrating an existing opensource Objective-C-GUI-Library (kind of popoverControl) to an MonoTouch project. That was rather straightforward and easy. Direct using of Objective-C-Libraries wasn't in my needs by now. But you can read about it in the Xamarin-Docs.
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Closed 10 years ago.
I am in need of an outline on teaching VB6/VBA to some co-workers. The material I am pretty confident I can fill in, just need a sense of how to order the class material. Its not going to be hard core programming [nix the VB6 jokes please :) ] but do want to touch the basics. Any free outlines or even entire presentations out there that I can use? I've been looking but nothing concrete so far.
thanks
If you mean VBA say VBA, not VB6. They differ a great deal based on the object models available, and the actual language syntax is a fairly simple thing to pick up.
Just look for some Dummies, O'Reilly, etc. books to use as a teaching guide. Maybe even go with self-study making yourself available for questions and general help, and to prod them along.
Well I went to the public library and found a book called "Visual Basic In Easy Steps". that seems to have a good outline and it covers VB6 and VBA. Straight and simple.
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Closed 10 years ago.
limesurvey is good enough and it is open-source, but why are wufoo-like services so popular nowadays?
Wufoo has a much more fancy user interface than limesurvey but why does limesurvey not make some improvements(2.0??)?
For business solution, which will be preferred in general case?
For one, I think the fact that the UI is so slick is one of the BIG reasons why services like Wufoo are indeed so popular. The target audience of these services is generally non-developer types who use mostly point-and-click interfaces and are very visual with their work, so a clean, well-organized UI that lends itself to ease of use will always win out.
After briefly testing both Wufoo and LimeSurvey, the difference in usage of drag-and-drop (Wufoo) vs. traditional text box and dropdown (Limesurvey) is readily apparent. While I felt overwhelmed at the start of both services, I did feel that Wufoo at least had some hints on which direction to go next if I was stuck, and never had a ton of controls on the page for me to see. It actually felt like a WYSIWYG editor for forms/surveys.
LimeSurvey on the other hand does not feel like it has any flow, and it's incredibly easy to get a bunch of toolbars on-screen that further confuse me. I can't speak to how comparable it is to Wufoo, or how powerful it is, but I have a feeling that while it can probably match what Wufoo can produce in terms of surveys, it probably requires much more expertise on my part.
But these are just my observations as a developer who has just recently heard of and tried both services.