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I’m new to visual basic.net. I have experience in C++ programming, but never created gui with it so learning vb.net for some quick gui development. and i want to learn vb.net. I can’t install visual basic express on computer cause i’m on shared computer and such huge install is not possible on that computer. So i picked up sharpdevelop.
After searching most of the tutorial, i found out that most of tutorial written for visual studio IDE for vb and vb.net. I’m trying to learn vb.net in depth from command line to gui programs. Any good recommendation of tutorials, book ? I searched google but very few results so far. I’m looking for good learning tutorials that can help learn with sharpdevelop.
any suggestion for tutorial and books that mentions sharpdevelop in their tutorial/guide ?
Firstly - if you are thinking about heading into .net, you might want to consider starting off with c#, especially because with your background it will be a bit easier, but if you need to learn vb.net, ofc there is nothing wrong with it, just in my experience your earning potential is higher with c#, and vb.net is kind of dying out (at least in Europe).
Second point, you should focus on starting your development either for web or for win forms, this will give you a sense of direction. Learning a new language takes some dedication.
I also think you're putting yourself through unnecessary punishment by not using the tools provided by Microsoft for your development. In my experience Visual Studio, MS SQL and Microsoft Word, are the best products to ever come out of Microsoft. Even the express editions are of a good quality. If you can head over to an internet cafe and download it from there, shouldn't cause such a problem surely to have it installed on that computer, after all its going to be used for personal development, not just playing games or wasting time.
might not be the answer you wanted, but its the best advice I can give at this stage, hope it helps....!
Also this is said from personal experience, because I've been down that road, and I promise you I found developing with MS supplied IDE's much more enjoyable, and in the end, kept things viable.
I don't see how a "programming language" (like VB.NET) book is written for a specific IDE (like VS), even if the author mentions some instructions to do with VS (menus, settings, etc.), you should be able to follow along with him, because SharpDevelop simulates VS quite well.
I've never seen a .NET book which talks about doing things in SharpDevelop rather than VS, because VS is far more popular IDE, although some authors mentions the IDE as an alternate to VS.
There's a good book authored by SharpDevelop team which teaches C# techniques using their IDE, and its digital format is free, its name is Dissecting a C# Application: Inside SharpDevelop, although there's no VB.NET version, AFAIK.
Another comment, I don't see why an experienced C++ programmer would learn VB.NET, if you want to learn a robust, quick GUI .NET language, go ahead and learn C#.
Good luck,,
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I am on a FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) team, and we plan on using LabVIEW to program our robot. I was wondering if anyone had any basic LabVIEW tasks that we could use to learn LabVIEW before we begin the actual programming of our robot?
EDIT: Most of the programmers have at least a basic understanding of programming, and are coming from another language.
I believe the best thing would be to go through the getting started tutorial of LabVIEW:
http://digital.ni.com/manuals.nsf/websearch/EC6EF8DE9CB98742862576F7006B0E1E
The reason I say that is because they contain exercises between every lesson, and you could attempt to do that without having a look at the solution.
Also, the following site has the 3-hour and 6-hour course on LabVIEW which could be approached in the same way:
http://www.ni.com/academic/labview_training/
Also, if you need guidance for that particular project, I don't mind getting involved to mentor your team on it. You could provide me with the contact details of your teacher/professor and I can get in touch with them.
Take Care
Adnan
I was also on a FIRST team for a while, and I taught the programmers while I was there. I found that the best way to get the language down was to practice with some simple projects which solidify data-flow and other important concepts in the mind.
A few:
A stop light with user-manipulable controls for how fast each light should stay on. Once you've got that down, fix it so that the user can only change stopping distance and speed limit. That way you work in some of the math functions.
I always taught some of the basic concepts, like loops and shift registers, with imaginary killbots. A killbot has a pre-set kill limit (for for loops), and has to keep track of how many hits it gets with shift registers.
I certainly wouldn't go with NI's training things. They only managed to confuse the new programmers, even the ones with experience in other languages. I also found it best not to teach the concept of global variables, which NI does, because it breaks the whole point of LabVIEW, data-flow.
Wow. That was long winded.
While I haven't gone through them, Ben Zimmer's company has been posting (apparently free) FRC training videos at http://www.frcmastery.com/. Possibly they're worth checking out.
If you have LabVIEW installed you could have a look at the following two sections of the on-line help files:
Getting started
Fundamentals
The Getting started section is a technical part on how to use LabVIEW, the fundamentals on the other hand provide a deep inside in how to program with LabVIEW and covers a lot. Both elements are available on the web (I provided the URLs)
Personally, I'm not so into NI resources.
However, they provided this short and rather nice course: http://cnx.org/content/col10241/1.4
(I like the videos).
Also, I used this
http://techteach.no/labview/lv85/labview/index.htm
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It's been a while now since Microsoft stopped supporting Embedded Visual C++ 4.0 (eVC 4), and they don't let you use the Windows Mobile SDK with the Express version of VS 2008. Now, I'm OK because I get an MSDN license through work (including VS 2008 Pro), but I'd like to work on a couple open-source projects, and not all the other contributing developers are so lucky. As a result, they're sticking with eVC, even though it doesn't run at all on Vista.
Is there a (free!) common denominator here? An IDE that will build MFC (and/or .NET!) apps, which runs on both XP and Vista? It doesn't have to be fancy, per se, but the more VS-level niceties it has, the happier I think we'd all be with it.
Suggestions for cheap commercial-ware are also welcome, though of course the very best option would be something open-source, especially cross-platform. I think MS is doing serious damage to the WM OS by discouraging development like this.
Unfortunately I think you're out of luck. There has been some success in getting SharpDevelop to compile managed smart device apps, though there was a period where is was broken in SharpDevelop too. I don't believe that debugging directly against the device or emulator works, though, so I'd be highly inclined to not bother. Developing without a debugger is unbelievably painful.
Even with this you don't have native support. What's your option htere? Well there's CeGCC and PocketGCC, but neither of those projects has had much activity in the fast few years - I'd say they've withered and died.
So really, Visual Studio is the only viable option.
Many in the development community (including myself) complained vocally when Microsoft stopped providing a free solution for smart device development. Believe me, we sat in several closed rooms in Redmond and yelled at several people about this - and it was way back in the Studo '03 days that we started yelling. The standard response was that the development side (whom we talked to) don't handle the business side (of pricing, SKU features, etc). Unfortunately I understand that, and I believe they were telling the truth.
To make matters worse, Microsoft made the unbelievable stupid decision that in VS '08 they'd not just require Standard (like they did in VS05) but they move it back to a Professional and better SKU feature again (where it was in '03) and thereby increase the cost to do development.
So what's your recourse? I'd recommend that if you can't afford the license, then look around for programs and offers that might give it. There was a time when Microsoft provided "driver developers" a free copy if they promised to develop and sell a driver within a year. I don't think they ever checked to see that you actually did (and if they did, creating a driver that does very little is only a couple hour task). If you're a student try to get a student discount. If you play with hardware, look for a kit that comes with VS. If you have any contact with any Microsoft reps at work, complain about this feature lack. Even if it's to the Office rep.
Edit: Just FYI, I ran it up the flagpole again this morning with the Visual Studio for Devices team telling them to tell their managers to think about a free option under VS 10. No idea if it will help or change things, but I've already seen another half dozen people jump in and agree with me, so there's certainly support and pressure for the idea from the outside.
Here is an article about Windows Mobile Development Without Visual Studio. It is only for Compact Framework development and it uses SharpDevelop as an IDE. However, I don't know if is possible/legal to download and install Windows Mobile SDK without Visual Studio.
Some quick google research indicates that SharpDevelop has support for this, but it might be a bit buggy at the moment.
Well, I think most have been said by the others however if you are prepared to spend a little, then Basic4PPC might be a good choice.
If I recall it's about $50,00. Don't get fooled by the word BASIC - it's actually very powerful. It's based on the NET Framework and you can write programmes both for desktop and device. It even has an IDE which works on the device. You can find further information at Basic4PPC. If you have a look at the forum as well, you will find out that there are many users and the forum has a high activity which is very positive.
Finally, have a look at this thread over at XDA-developers. There you can find lots of goodies.
Good luck.
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I've programmed in VB5 (and a little VB6) in the past, used MS Access at a 'writing code' level but this was all a few years ago and I've only used PHP more recently. I'd like to get back in to programming for the PC (Windows...) but not sure where to go with a choice of language. VB.Net? C#? ....any suggestions? Something easy to pick up, simple to use for creating 'small' desktop utilities, that sort of thing.
VB.NET is conceptually different enough from VB5/6 that you might almost be better off going with something completely new.
Plus, Jeff says he gave up on VB.NET because he had such a hard time finding decent code examples. C# is everywhere.
I use C# if I'm in .NET. I like it well enough, but then I got here via Java, without a whole lot of VB experience.
At the risk of getting downvoted to oblivion, I disagree with the many C# and VB.NET suggestions. Whilst I've played with C# (not VB.NET) and it's a very impressive and versatile language/toolkit, if I were you I'd attempt to broaden your horizons by going for something with decent cross-platform portability such as Python.
It's a fun language to play with, easy to learn, teaches good habits, and if you find yourself looking for a new job in a couple of years time, at least if it's a non-Windows development job, you've got a skill you can take to the party.
I think that if you have used VB6 and Access in the past, picking up VB.NET should be a breeze. In many ways VB.NET will let you do what you've done before, but with much more structure and a "real language" feel rather than a "scripting" feel compared to the past.
A .NET language - VB.NET or C# is a good idea. Lots of information available, and you can get the Express versions for free. VB.NET may be an easier transition, based upon your previous experience. Be warned though: C# is more popular, which means there are more tools and code samples available.
Check out related questions:
Which language should I pick up: vb.net or C# and
Usage Statistics: C# versus VB.NET
If you like to build 'small' desktop utilities, that sort of thing that does not require the .NET framework to run, you might want to check out BCX. It is free.
BCX is a small command line tool that inputs a BCX BASIC source code file and outputs a 'C' source code file which can be compiled with many C or C++ compilers.
Using BCX and a C compiler enables you to produce powerful 32-bit native code Windows console mode programs, windows GUI applications, and Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL's) without having to incur the costs of an expensive commercial BASIC compiler. The programs that you create will be among the smallest and fastest 32 bit executable programs around, requiring no additional distributed runtime modules.
URL: http://bcx-basic.sourceforge.net/
if your already familiar with vb5 and vb6 and your just building small desktop utilities then I would recommend vb.net
if you have used VB, VB.Net seems like the natural choice.
If you wanted something specifically for creating simple desktop applications you could look at a scripting language with Tk such as ruby or python which also might also give you a change to learn a new language with different features.
Most probably VB.NET would be best for you, although I prefer C# when write for Windows and C++ with Qt when application has to work on other platforms as well.
The conventional wisdom says that the programmer "upgrade path" from VB6 leads to VB.NET...I do not agree with the conventional wisdom. I used VB6 day in and day out for almost 10 years. Now I use C# very comfortably.
Compared to the conceptual differences between COM (VB6 is based on COM) and .NET, the syntax differences between VB.NET and C# are minor. On the other hand, there is much better support (from both MS and the community) for C#.
I heartily recommend that you give C# a try.
While it might be a little more difficult for you to pick up than VB.NET I think you'll appreciate the gains in the maintainability of the code you produce.
If you have used VB5/6 and VBA before, VB.NET should feel pretty familiar. However, VB has become object oriented after version 6, so there is some new things to learn.
If you want to broaden your knowledge a bit, C# is a good alternative.
I would recommend learning some C# even if you want to go on to VB.NET. They both use the .NET framework and compile into nearly identical IL code, so most of what you learn in C# is useful in VB.NET also. It's also quite useful to be able to translate between them, as you then can use coding examples in either language.
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I've seen the question (and answer) when posed for MS SQL Server, though I don't yet know of one for Oracle and PL/SQL. Are there xUnit style testing frameworks for Oracle's PL/SQL? What are they?
The most commonly used is probably utPLSQL
The original author of this toolkit now works for Quest, which has a commercial PL/SQL unit testing application.
The last version of SQL Developer includes an Unit Test suite very interesting.
I have created and using PL/SQL unit testing framework using Ruby library ruby-plsql.
It provides much shorter and more readable tests than utPLSQL and gives more flexibility compared to GUI tools (like Quest Code Tester or SQLDeveloper 2.1).
PLUTO appears to be very new, and there doesn't appear to be a lot of documentation. So I would be concerned that you'd be working through a decent number of bugs to get things working. utPLSQL has been around for a number of years and pretty widely deployed, so there have been a lot more bug fixes and a lot more people who can help out if you run into problems.
Additionally, and not to disparage anyone, but Steven Feuerstein, who wrote utPLSQL is one of the most recognized PL/SQL experts in the world. While I'm sure the author of PLUTO is a perfectly competent developer, I don't believe he has anywhere near the reputation Steven has.
I found this question searching for a PL/SQL unit test framework. I've found an article where PLUTO's developer argues for it:
... there are a few products that help PL/SQL programmers test their code. Quest Software has a product called Code Tester for Oracle; however, the free version is cripple-ware and the for-pay version just adds one more obstacle for you to have to get by in convincing your organization to start testing. There is also a utPLSQL project that was abandoned a few years ago and it is starting to suffer from bit rot.
I've recently used successfully unit testing framework of PL/SQL Commons toolkit (see also author's slides). The toolkit is not yet publicly available (at the time of the writing) but if you drop an email to the authors you'll get a working package (or at least I got).
I also found another library: PLUTO - has anyone used these and can compare/contrast them?
We use DBUnit. It integrates nicely into a continuous integration tools like Cruise Control, though developers need to learn a little Java. Templates, utilities and code samples helped our pl/sql developers get up to speed quickly.
Haven't used any, but last realese of utPLSQL was on July 2005 and since the author is the same from the commercial code tester for oracle (http://www.quest.com/code-tester-for-oracle/) I don't think we'll be seeing much of utPLSQL in the future if any, so I think I'll take my chances with PLUTO (2008)
I looked at all of those, but the only one I liked was PLUnit. It does seem to have been abandoned by its maintainers (I had to tweak the scripts to make them install). But the API is extremely simple, and it doesn't try to force an OOP/xUnit approach into PL/SQL.
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What do you think is a good IDE for learning SmallTalk? I'll only be using it as a hobby, so it has to be free.
You should also consider Pharo. Pharo is a fork of Squeak. Their goals are:
a clean and lean open-source Smalltalk platform, derived from Squeak
the obvious choice for professional Smalltalk development
an emerging platform to help people invent the future
Whether it is Squeak or Pharo, there is a large, active and supportive community.
I think Squeak is the way to go. It has an entire smalltalk environment and is constantly updated. Its what I used for learning and is actually even a cool app in itself.
Squeak is free. Cincom has a non-commercial version of VisualWorks. GemStone/S is free for small installations. GNU Smalltalk is "free" in the GPL sense.
Definitively go for Squeak. It's a closed system in terms of the environment, or what you call the IDE, but it's fun to do webapps with - look for Seaside. However I always recommend everyone involved in development to take a look at it, just to understand how development in an image is working - and to experience a live system.
The main problem with Squeak, or maybe Smalltalk in general, is that once you get used to it, it's very hard to go back to the conventional way of programming.
Besides, I heard that you might become a better programmer if you work for some time in Smalltalk. I don't know if that's true, but I certainly like to think so.
Squeak is nice and free and very cool
You can also use Cincom Smalltalk or Dolphin Smalltalk. They both have community editions.
If you start with Cincom Smalltalk, there's a ton of learning material available:
-- tutorials
-- daily screencasts
-- videos
-- weekly podcast
You can find the screencasts, videos, and podcasts on iTunes - just search for "Smalltalk" in the podcast section.
You won't need a separate IDE because smalltalks usually come with their own IDE, so choosing your smalltalk flavour pretty much determines the IDE for you. Don't let this fact scare you off from taking on smalltalk though!
WRT your original question, I had two wonderful years developing in Dolphin Smalltalk & highly recommend it.
Dolphin Smalltalk is only as free as a beer is though. If you need an opensource smalltalk go with Squeak.
In my opinion Dolphin is the more polished/comfortable/user-friendly one.
If you are used to Eclipse or Visual Studio, and are running on Windows - then Dolphin is something that will feel very familiar to you. It looks very nice (no emulated widgets, as its not trying to be cross platform), and it has nice touches like code completion and a graphical window designer (rather like IB on the mac). It also has great refactoring tools and can easily create small .exe file (e.g. 500k including the vm). There is a little screencast of doing TDD in Dolphin
Of course, these things are available in other dialects - in particular Squeak Pharo looks very promising particularly if you are after an open source product.
Smalltalk/X came up on Reddit the other day. It looked pretty good.