[ChristianGamer]

Okay so the tutorial I'm on is pretty straight forward but one thing I've noticed is that sometimes they say words and don't explain anything about them. Such as 'arguments' I hardly know what they're talking about because I don't know what the programming definition and us of an argument is! So I was wondering a couple definitions and possibly the applications of these terms if nobody minds answering my misc. request... I'm also kinda thinking it'll be a good place to go for beginners on this board who are also kind of confused by the programmer speak going around! If there's another board like this I apologize and I'll be totally willing to redirect my question there but I'm mainly wondering what a C# 'argument' is...

[Ryano121]

An argument is the actual "data" that you pass into a methods parameters.

For example

public void someMethod(string myParameter) {}

string p = "this is the argument";
someMethod(p);

In this case 'myParameter' is the parameter, and the string 'p' is the argument.

[andrewsw]

This MSDN page is quite good, even though it references VB.

I'm not sure about the car-parking analogy though

[People are a bit lax with the terminology though and you will often hear the terms parameter and argument treated as synonyms.]

This post has been edited by andrewsw: 26 January 2013 - 05:19 PM

[AdamSpeight2008]

Arguments are the values you supply to a method to met it method signature.

Dim ValueOut As Integer
If Integer.TryParse("1234",ValueOut) Then
...

I'm supplying the method (TryParse) the arguments "!234" and the reference to variable: ValueOut

Parameters are what you define in the method signature

Public Function Example (Of T) (P1 As Integer,ByRef P2 AS String,Optional Sq As Boolean = True, ParamArray xs As Double()) As T

Generic Parameters
ByRef Parameter
Usually used for Out parameters, eg Integer.TryParse(String, Integer) As Boolean
Optional Parameters
Skipping these parameters will default value supplied
ParamArray xs As Double()
These must be the at the end of the method parameters, and consume any matching arguments left over.

Return (Parameter) Type


Arguments

[tlhIn`toq]

Quote

I don't know what the programming definition and us of an argument is!

I've never seen a beginner's book that didn't define these things.

Are you working your way through a book, such as "Learn C# in 30 days"? If not, why not?

---

My standard beginner resources post - Updated DEC 2012

---

You can try to learn C# by dismantling snippets and googling terms - basically you can take a hit-n-miss, shotgun approach. Or you could just follow a proper training program whether it be a couple intro books, school, on-line course or series of tutorials like the ones we offer. I'll tell you from experience that just fumbling around in the dark and trying to teach yourself with no guidance doesn't work. Its like stumbling across a Harrier Jump Jet and trying to teach yourself how to fly with no background in piloting: You simply lack any groundwork to start from. How can you lay out your own training course if you don't already know the material? Would you go to a university where the teacher says "I don't know any of this but we'll fumble through it together?"

We have a tutorials section and a learning C# series of articles.

First learn the language by working 2-5 "Learn C# in 30 days" type books cover to cover. Do a couple hundred on-line tutorial projects where you build what you're told to build, the way you are told to build it WITH AN EXPLANATION OF WHY so you can learn.

There are three routes people seem to take when learning programming.

• Just start trying to create programs
  
• Start taking apart other programs and try to figure out the language by reverse engineering
  
• Follow a guided learning course (school or self-teaching books)

For the life of me I can't figure out why people try 1 & 2. I strongly suggest taking the guided learning approach. Those book authors go in a certain order for a reason: They know what they're doing and they know the best order to learn the materials.

Quote

Where do I start?

You start by learning a coding language FIRST.
Learn to plan before you type.
THEN you start designing software with a purpose.


If this sounds like you

Newbie/Rookie said:

I have a little programming experience but I need to write ...

read this section

Spoiler

You need to start there. I can't say "I have little experience in speaking Russian, but I have been assigned to write a mystery novel in Russian. Can you help me?"

We can help you by saying "First learn basic programming and the language of C#. Then take on assignments." Could someone here write this program for you? Sure. Could someone here map out all the processes you need to follow and do the Software Design part of this in the slim hope you could code it from there? Sure. But we don't volunteer to do the job that you're either getting paid for, or getting a grade for. You may want to read this.

For now, just work on the lessons. Do a self-teaching book from cover to cover. Then consider writing a program.

Don't try to create a useful working program to fit a need of yours (or a for-pay contract) as your introduction to coding project. When you are learning to code you don't know enough to code a program, let alone know how to engineer the architecture of a program. It would be like saying "I don't know how to read sheet music, or play an instrument. I think I'll write a 3 act opera as my first learning experience."

I don't say this to be mean. We've seen lots of new coders take this approach and we know it doesn't work. Trying to design your own programs before you understand the basics of the code language you've chosen just leads to problems, frustrations, and 'swiss-cheese' education (lots of holes).

Otherwise, you can just jump to the resources here:
Some of the tutorials below are for C# or Java not C, C++, VB.NET [...]. But the conceptual stuff of classes, object oriented design, events etc. are not language specific and should give you enough guidance in theory of program development for you to be able to look-up specific code example in your chosen coding language.

---

Resources, references and suggestions for new programmers. - Updated Oct 2012

---

Spoiler

Quote

I already have a background in programming from this other software/technology/lanugage so I don't think I need to do tutorials

Here's how I look at doing tutorials even if one has a coding background that makes one think they don't need to do tutorials:

• If one's background really is enough to not need the tutorials, then they won't take long - So what's the harm?
  
• If the tutorials do take a while, then it might be time to re-think how much of one's old experience really applies to the new technology.
  
• There's no down-side. Every tutorial/series teaches something in a new way. Maybe you pick up a neat trick or a different approach to something that you already knew.

The stages of asking for homework help on a forum



But honestly, just typing away and seeing what pops up in Intellisense is going to make your self-education take 20 years. You can learn by trying to reverse engineer the language through banging on the keyboard experimentation - or you can learn by doing the tutorials and following a good "How to learn C#" book. There are so many great "How do I build my first application" tutorials on the web... There are dozens of "Learn C# in 21 days", "My first C# program" type books at your local book seller or even public library.

Beginner:

C# learning series right here on Dream in code

MSDN Framework Development Guide

C# Reading list by Eric Lipert

C# Fundamentals: Development for absolute beginners (video series)
Build a Program Now! in Visual C# by Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2542-5 is a terrific book that has you build a Windows Forms application, a WPF app, a database application, your own web browser.

Martyr2's mega project ideas list is a great place to start on developmental projectst that you can learn from; rather than trying to make something complex like a game as a self-teaching tool {that never works for anyone}

Visual Studio Keyboard Shortcuts

D.I.C. C# Resource page Start here
Intro to C# online tutorial then here...
C# control structures then here.
MSDN Beginner Developer video series
MSDN video on OOP principals, making classes, constructors, accessors and method overloading
MSDN Top guideline violations, know what to avoid before you do it.
Design patterns as diagrams

I hate sending people to another site when we have such good tutorials here, but this series shouldn't be overlooked.
Programming OOP in C# - Part 1
Programming OOP in C# - Part 2
Programming OOP in C# - Part 3
Programming OOP in C# - Part 4
Programming OOP in C# - Part 5

Writing a text file is always one of the first things people want to do, in order to store data like high-scores, preferences and so on.
Writing a text file tutorial.
Reading a text file tutorial.
.Split()ing a string

Have you seen the 500+ MSDN Code Samples? They spent a lot of time creating samples and demos. It seems a shame to not use them.



Intermediate:
OOP design patterns


Microsoft Events (webcasts and podcasts)
The tutorials below walk through making an application including inheritance, custom events and custom controls, object serialization and more.
Quick and easy custom events
Bulding an application - Part 1
Building an application - Part 2
Separating data from GUI - PLUS - serializing the data to XML
WPF version (WPF-MVVM data binding)
Passing values between forms/classes
Decouple your multi-threaded work from the GUI so forms don't hang

Working with environmental variables
'Why do we use delegates?' thread
And everyone always wants to connect to a database, right out of the gate so Database tutorials right here on DIC

C# Cookbooks
Are a great place to get good code, broken down by need, written by coding professionals. You can use the code as-is, but take the time to actually study it. These professionals write in a certain style for a reason developed by years of experience and heartache.

Everyone:
Debugging tutorial
Debugging tips
Debugging in detail
Great debugging tips
It still doesn't work, article

I urge you to work through the C# learning series here on DIC, and to work a self-teaching book from cover to cover before you even think about designing your own applications.
Microsoft Visual Studio Tips, 251 ways to improve your productivity, Microsoft press, ISBN 0-7356-2640-5 Has many, many great, real-world tips that I use all the time.

These are just good every-day references to put in your bookmarks.
MSDN C# Developers Center with tutorials
Welcome to Visual Studio
Free editions of Visual Studio 2010
Student editions of Visual Studio


Windows Presentation Foundation:
Create Animations Programmatically

Some of my common tips (some may apply more than others to your specific style):

• Take the extra 3 seconds to rename your controls each time you drag them onto a form. The default names of button1, button2... button54 aren't very helpful. If you rename them right away to something like btnOk, btnCancel, btnSend etc. it helps tremendously when you make the methods for them because they are named after the button by the designer.btnSend_Click(object sender, eventargs e) is a lot easier to maintain than button1_click(object sender, eventargs e)
  
  
• You aren't paying for variable names by the byte. So instead of variables names of a, b, c go ahead and use meaningful names like index, timeOut, row, column and so on. You should avoid 'T' for the timer. Amongst other things 'T' is commonly used throughout C# for Type and this will lead to problems. There are naming guidelines you should follow so your code confirms to industry standards. It makes life much easier on everyone around you, including those of us here to help. If you start using the standards from the beginning you don't have to retrain yourself later.
  You might want to look at some of the naming guidelines. Its a lot easier to start with good habits than to break bad habits later and re-learn.
  
  
  • Guidelines for names
    
  • Naming guidelines
    
  • Design guidelines for classes
  
  
  
• Don't use your GUI objects as your variable. In other words don't keep referencing TextBox4.Text everyplace. TextBox4.Text is not a variable or property. The GUI is on its own thread so as soon as you start doing multi-threading you're screwed because your worker thread can't access the GUI elements. Use properties.
  
  
• Try to avoid having work actually take place in GUI control event handlers. It is better to have the GUI handler call other methods so those methods can be reused and make the code more readable. This is also how you can send parameters rather than use excessive global variables. Get in this habit even if you are using WinForms because WPF works a lot under the idea of "commands" and this will get you working towards that. Think of each gester, control click, menu option etc. as a command to do something such as a command to SAVE. It doesn't matter where the command comes from, all sources should point at the same target to do the actual saving.
  
  Spoiler

  
  

  // All of this different triggering mechinisms call the same single [il]SavePreferences()[/il] method
  
  btnSave(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences(preferencesPath);
  }
  
  <KeyboardShortcut control+s bound to save>
  <Touchscreen guesture swiping from lowerleft to upperright bound to save>
  
  SaveMenuItem(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences(@"C:\prefs\test.txt");
  }
  
  SaveContextMenu(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences();// No parameter method overload
  }
  
  FormMain_Closing(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      if (IsDirty) SavePreferences();
  }
  

  
  
  
• Don't replace lines of code that don't work. Instead comment them out and put your new attempts below that. This will keep you from re-trying the same ideas over and over. Also, when you come back to us saying "I've tried this 100 different ways and still can't get it", we can actually see what you tried. So often a failed attempt is very very close and just needs a little nudge in the right direction. So if we can say "See what you did in attempt 3... blah blah" it helps a lot
  
  
  Spoiler

  // Try #1 - May 1, 0900hrs
  //    code
  //    code  
  //    code
  // Try #2 - May 2, 1700hrs   Okay, plan B.  What if I do it *this* way
  //    code
  //    code  
  //    code
  // Try #14 - May 3, 0500hrs after 5 cans of RedBull.  Maybe I should get some sleep. I can't think of anything else but this last idea
      code
      code  
      code
  
  

  
  If you are using Visual Studio you can select a block of lines and hit control+k control+c (Kode Comment) to comment it out. control+k control+u (Kode Uncomment) to uncomment a selected block.
  
  
  
• You have to program as if everything breaks, nothing works, the cyberworld is not perfect, the attached hardware is flakey, the network is slow and unreliable, the harddrive is about to fail, every method will return an error and every user will do their best to break your software. Confirm everything. Range check every value. Make no assumptions or presumptions.
  
  
• I strongly suggest installing VMware or some other virtualization technology on your development PC so you can create a couple virtual computers for testing. This would allow you to debug and test inside: WinXP32, XP64, Vista, Win7x32, Win7x64... etc. without having to actually have 5 physical PC's. Visual Studio will let you send the debug directly into one of these virtual machines so you can watch it operate, check its variables, see the crashes and so on just as if it were debugging on your real machine.
  
  
• This can't be stressed enough in today's world of cell phone messaging:
  Don't use txt/sms/leet/T9 speak like: u no, u r, dnt, wut i m do-n, coz, al gud, b4, ny1, sum1, please and so on like this guy:
  
  
  Spoiler

  dis not b d'hood dawg... You are sitting at a real keyboard with a real monitor, not a cell phone. You are not here texting your high school posse to come to your kegger after their shift at Taco Bell. You are here asking for help from senior coding professionals who graciously donate their valuable time to helping the next generation of coders with their chosen craft. Please try to show them, yourself and the industry some respect by writing at least at an eighth grade level. (IE: English not ebonics or SMS, real words, punctuation and so on). If you can't take your own problem/question seriously enough to write like an adult, then why would you expect anyone else to take it seriously?
  
  When you write a post you are presenting yourself. Your writing style is all you have to show others who you are and what you stand for. When I see posts filled with lack of capitalization, SMS text like 'Urself', lack of punctuation and so on; what I see is someone who just doesn't care to make even an eighth grade presentation of themselves. I also see that you feel we are not worth the effort. Posts that look like this show that you don't feel the person you are talking to is worth speaking to as an adult. If you show this level of contempt or apathy towards someone you are asking for help how can you expect to be taken seriously or expect to receive that expert's fullest attention and time to help you?

[ChristianGamer]

tlhIn`toq, on 26 January 2013 - 06:49 PM, said:

Quote

I don't know what the programming definition and use of an argument is!

I've never seen a beginner's book that didn't define these things.

Are you working your way through a book, such as "Learn C# in 30 days"? If not, why not?

No and it's because I'm kind of out of work.. I'm working my way towards my G.E.D. so I can get a job but until then I have a serious lack of resources. If there's any tutorials that would be helpful and explain that kind of stuff be my guest and recommend some!

[andrewsw]

ChristianGamer, on 27 January 2013 - 12:56 AM, said:

tlhIn`toq, on 26 January 2013 - 06:49 PM, said:

Quote

I don't know what the programming definition and use of an argument is!

I've never seen a beginner's book that didn't define these things.

Are you working your way through a book, such as "Learn C# in 30 days"? If not, why not?

No and it's because I'm kind of out of work.. I'm working my way towards my G.E.D. so I can get a job but until then I have a serious lack of resources. If there's any tutorials that would be helpful and explain that kind of stuff be my guest and recommend some!

Eh?! It appears you only read the first two lines of the previous post and neglected all the other very useful information.

[tlhIn`toq]

Can't pay for a book or course. Okay. But you do seem to be able to get on-line even if it is only at a free source like the library or hanging out at Starbucks.

Quote

I have a serious lack of resources.

Not when it comes to learning programming you don't. It's simply untrue. Everything you could ever hope to find is available on the internet. And I'm not just talking about places to ask questions in the hopes of being hand-held through it all. There are entire courses for free... many publishing sites let you browse entire chapters of books on-line in the hopes of selling the books. Oh - and there is a public library in your town isn't there?

A 5 second Google of "C# for Dummies" lead me to an entire series of YouTube videos.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=SqMreZ9syWo

MSDN has numerous tutorials.

When I want a definition for something as you did here, the first place I hit is Wikipedia.
argument(programming) - See parameter (computer programming)

There are also numerous free online course offered by schools if you look around. I just did a 5 week course on Windows Phone 8 that was free.
http://learn.itmasters.edu.au/

Sorry if this is blunt but: If you're not at work then you have 40 hours a week more than the rest of us to research and study. A motivated person with the drive to succeed finds a why to reach their goals. Other people find reasons why its not their fault.

This post has been edited by tlhIn`toq: 27 January 2013 - 07:32 AM

[andrewsw]

Talking of which, tlhIn`toq there is a free 800+ page ebook for Windows 8 programming.

This post has been edited by andrewsw: 27 January 2013 - 07:43 AM

[tlhIn`toq]

Cool. Thanks for the link. I'm sure we'll add add it to our collections of coding libraries. I love it when they are available as ePubs so I get all the advantages of scaling type size etc. on my iPad!

That link made me wonder what else was available for free.
So I googled "Free microsoft press" and was lead to this page where there a a dozen titles listed.
http://blogs.msdn.co...ou-a-penny.aspx

[ChristianGamer]

andrewsw, on 27 January 2013 - 04:04 AM, said:

ChristianGamer, on 27 January 2013 - 12:56 AM, said:

tlhIn`toq, on 26 January 2013 - 06:49 PM, said:

Quote

I don't know what the programming definition and use of an argument is!

I've never seen a beginner's book that didn't define these things.

Are you working your way through a book, such as "Learn C# in 30 days"? If not, why not?

No and it's because I'm kind of out of work.. I'm working my way towards my G.E.D. so I can get a job but until then I have a serious lack of resources. If there's any tutorials that would be helpful and explain that kind of stuff be my guest and recommend some!

Eh?! It appears you only read the first two lines of the previous post and neglected all the other very useful information.

Yeah, I apologize about that... I was really tired when I quoted that and kinda shrugged aside the rest... Sorry!

[ChristianGamer]

Though I do wanna say thanks a ton, a lot of programmers up till now have shunned me away telling me that I need to buy books and join a school. So when I hear 'why haven't you?' it kinda brings up that feeling of 'oh not this again...' I didn't mean to sound like I was ignoring your other information! But yes, I do have 40 more hours a week and I want to put it to the best use I can as it can't last forever. All of these tutorials look spectacular and I was looking all over for how to find a proper way to look up the programming version of the word but I just couldn't seem to think of the correct search terms... C# station has also been a huge help in my programming venture and because of it I now know how Variables work, how to create instance methods (Although I am a tad bit confused about some parts of it...) How to make while and do while loops (For and foreach confuse the crap out of me...) and several condition statements such as if, else, switch, etc.

All the help and resources your sharing are a big help and I plan to get right to reading them! Yet again I apologize if it sounding like I kinda snapped..