[Gmoney93079]

I'm sure you have all seen my other post on what I am trying to do, now after reading some responses I think I'm going in the wrong direction. I am basiclly wanting to create some shipping/receiving software. It will need to be run on some machines(the problem is I am not sure if they are macs or PCs) I also would like to make it compatible with a bar code scanner. Basiclly this software will allow a user to login with a password, enter in shipping/receiving type of information whether it be through a keyboard or a barcode scanner, and then send an email to the owners and managers of the company. My problem is it seems they will need the JRE if I am using Java. I first chose Java for it is easier to make GUI's and for what I was trying to do, plus I have been training myself on Java. Now though it seems it would not be as easy to deploy for they need the JRE, and may not understand how to get that on their system. So back to drawing boards is where I am should I do this in C++ instead? I have 3 years through school in developing in C++, would this be easier for me to deploy to the users than Java? Is C++ compatible with a barcode scanner? What do you all think go with Java like originally planned, or C++? Also how hard is it to make a GUI like I did in Java? With C++ I've created simple DOS looking applications but I want my program to look as robust as a application like MS Word. I've also created simple games that had a GUI looking window that calculated different physics types of operations. I've never tried this before so this is all new to me. I also want to be able to put this on a disc for distribution, and have it be easily able to install just like any other Windows type of program, so on that note what language is best to use to do this as well? So basiclly if someone can assist me in this decision it would be greatly appreciated, thanks;)

[Gmoney93079]

Gmoney93079, on 30 December 2011 - 04:00 PM, said:

I'm sure you have all seen my other post on what I am trying to do, now after reading some responses I think I'm going in the wrong direction. I am basiclly wanting to create some shipping/receiving software. It will need to be run on some machines(the problem is I am not sure if they are macs or PCs) I also would like to make it compatible with a bar code scanner. Basiclly this software will allow a user to login with a password, enter in shipping/receiving type of information whether it be through a keyboard or a barcode scanner, and then send an email to the owners and managers of the company. My problem is it seems they will need the JRE if I am using Java. I first chose Java for it is easier to make GUI's and for what I was trying to do, plus I have been training myself on Java. Now though it seems it would not be as easy to deploy for they need the JRE, and may not understand how to get that on their system. So back to drawing boards is where I am should I do this in C++ instead? I have 3 years through school in developing in C++, would this be easier for me to deploy to the users than Java? Is C++ compatible with a barcode scanner? What do you all think go with Java like originally planned, or C++? Also how hard is it to make a GUI like I did in Java? With C++ I've created simple DOS looking applications but I want my program to look as robust as a application like MS Word. I've also created simple games that had a GUI looking window that calculated different physics types of operations. I've never tried this before so this is all new to me. I also want to be able to put this on a disc for distribution, and have it be easily able to install just like any other Windows type of program, so on that note what language is best to use to do this as well? So basiclly if someone can assist me in this decision it would be greatly appreciated, thanks;)

hmmmmmmm......Just did some research and saw that C# is used for GUI's which is more what I'm trying to do than have a user have to use text all the time. What do you all think, added benefit would be I can use it to start with my main career the video game industry by going through XBOX arcade;) The Java could work to through a download through the web, but I rather have the user have a cd in case something happens, damn this is confusing.

[tlhIn`toq]

So basically you don't know any programming language yet, and you're trying to decide what to learn first. Is that right? (yes I consider 3 years of college C++ next to nothing. The same amount of C++ could have been learnt on your own in about 6 months. It gives you a C-family base though. But if you haven't actively done anything with it beyond the 3 years of school homework then it really hold no advantage to you over learning C#)

Personally I'd go C#. I like it. Ask 10 guys here you'll get 10 different answers. You might as well be asking "What car should I drive?" But since you mention wanting to do Xbox stuff using C# would get you in the right direction.

Newbie/Rookie said:

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

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).

---

Resources, references and suggestions for new programmers. - Updated Dec 2011

---

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

Finding answers to specific problems:
Sometimes just knowing where to look can make all the difference. Google is your friend.
Search with either "C#" or "MSDN" as the first word: "MSDN Picturebox", "C# Custom Events", "MSDN timer" etc.
How to do a good search that will get you targeted answers.

Once you have that MSDN page that describes the function, you may not be familiar with out to actually get useful information from that page. There is a LOT of data there. So what is the important parts? Read this guide to reading the MSDN.

Don't think you are the first person to ask a question. Try a search on this site to see if someone has already brought up this problem. Also, as soon as you post your question go to the bottom of the updated page: You will see where the system has already analyzed your question and tried to find similar threads for the same question, so check those links out.

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# Fundamentals: Development for absolute beginners
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.

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:
The tutorials below walk through making an application including inheritance, custom events and custom controls, object serialization and more.
Bulding an application - Part 1
Building an application - Part 2
Quick and easy custom events
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

Windows Presentation Foundation:
Create Animations Programmatically

Let me also throw in a couple tips:

• 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.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• Try to avoid having work actually take place in GUI control event handlers. It is usually better to have the GUI handler call other methods so those methods can be reused and make the code more readible.
  
  Spoiler

  
  

  btnSave(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences();
  }
  
  SaveMenuItem(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences();
  }
  
  SaveContextMenu(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences();
  }
  
  FormMain_Closing(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      if (IsDirty) SavePreferences();
  }
  

  
  
  
• 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, and so on like this guy:
  
  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?

This post has been edited by tlhIn`toq: 31 December 2011 - 09:20 AM

[baavgai]

First, JRE needing to be installed on clients is not a huge factor. If you are "not sure if they are macs or PCs" then it should still be on the table.

C# isn't bad, since any Windows box should have some form of the .NET framework. However, the Windows client might still need a Windows Update depending on version compatibility. Note, this really isn't a viable option for a non Windows machine. Even if it was, any cross platform solution you could cobble together would make JRE look like a cake walk.

For any GUI development, the stumbling block in the graphics bit. On Windows, it's really all just Windows. But if you use some non Microsoft abstraction, like Qt or GTK, you'd need that packaged too.

Since you've already stated you need a "user to login", then you basically need server? You could just make a web application at that point and avoid a lot of the deployment hassles.

[Gmoney93079]

baavgai, on 31 December 2011 - 12:48 PM, said:

First, JRE needing to be installed on clients is not a huge factor. If you are "not sure if they are macs or PCs" then it should still be on the table.

C# isn't bad, since any Windows box should have some form of the .NET framework. However, the Windows client might still need a Windows Update depending on version compatibility. Note, this really isn't a viable option for a non Windows machine. Even if it was, any cross platform solution you could cobble together would make JRE look like a cake walk.

For any GUI development, the stumbling block in the graphics bit. On Windows, it's really all just Windows. But if you use some non Microsoft abstraction, like Qt or GTK, you'd need that packaged too.

Since you've already stated you need a "user to login", then you basically need server? You could just make a web application at that point and avoid a lot of the deployment hassles.

Thanks I was thinking that as well, but Network administrating is what I will be learning this session in school. The other problem is I'm not sure if they have a main server. The person owns 3 different companies and I am unaware of what they use at this moment. The question though mainly is what language would you think would be better for this project?

[Gmoney93079]

tlhIn`toq, on 31 December 2011 - 09:17 AM, said:

So basically you don't know any programming language yet, and you're trying to decide what to learn first. Is that right? (yes I consider 3 years of college C++ next to nothing. The same amount of C++ could have been learnt on your own in about 6 months. It gives you a C-family base though. But if you haven't actively done anything with it beyond the 3 years of school homework then it really hold no advantage to you over learning C#)

Personally I'd go C#. I like it. Ask 10 guys here you'll get 10 different answers. You might as well be asking "What car should I drive?" But since you mention wanting to do Xbox stuff using C# would get you in the right direction.

Newbie/Rookie said:

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

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).

---

Resources, references and suggestions for new programmers. - Updated Dec 2011

---

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

Finding answers to specific problems:
Sometimes just knowing where to look can make all the difference. Google is your friend.
Search with either "C#" or "MSDN" as the first word: "MSDN Picturebox", "C# Custom Events", "MSDN timer" etc.
How to do a good search that will get you targeted answers.

Once you have that MSDN page that describes the function, you may not be familiar with out to actually get useful information from that page. There is a LOT of data there. So what is the important parts? Read this guide to reading the MSDN.

Don't think you are the first person to ask a question. Try a search on this site to see if someone has already brought up this problem. Also, as soon as you post your question go to the bottom of the updated page: You will see where the system has already analyzed your question and tried to find similar threads for the same question, so check those links out.

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# Fundamentals: Development for absolute beginners
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.

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:
The tutorials below walk through making an application including inheritance, custom events and custom controls, object serialization and more.
Bulding an application - Part 1
Building an application - Part 2
Quick and easy custom events
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

Windows Presentation Foundation:
Create Animations Programmatically

Let me also throw in a couple tips:

• 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.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• Try to avoid having work actually take place in GUI control event handlers. It is usually better to have the GUI handler call other methods so those methods can be reused and make the code more readible.
  
  Spoiler

  
  

  btnSave(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences();
  }
  
  SaveMenuItem(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences();
  }
  
  SaveContextMenu(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences();
  }
  
  FormMain_Closing(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      if (IsDirty) SavePreferences();
  }
  

  
  
  
• 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, and so on like this guy:
  
  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?

Ok I understand what you are saying but I do have experience in programming through school and what I have been teaching myself. I understand how to develop a program, and then learning the language is not hard especially with Eclipse, or Visual studios for they both have intellisense which helps me locate my errors when debugging and provides typically what I need to fill in in different areas of my program. Now when it comes to languages or anything for that matter I pick it up easily. I am confident I can make this program, and never stated I wanted anyone to code it here. Truthfully I'm trying to hide as much information as possible so no one takes my ideas. So back to the question on a project of this nature what language would be best and why?

[tlhIn`toq]

Gmoney93079, on 31 December 2011 - 03:00 PM, said:

Ok I understand what you are saying but I do have experience in programming through school and what I have been teaching myself.

I think you are confusing 'experience' with 'theoretical understanding from education'. You can read every book on sex education. But until you have sex it is all just theory waiting to be put into practice. And for both of these subjects the practice is key. Getting through the basic mechanics and being really, really good at either requires a lot more than just book knowledge or following a step-by-step guide.

Gmoney93079, on 31 December 2011 - 03:00 PM, said:

I understand how to develop a program, and then learning the language is not hard especially with Eclipse, or Visual studios for they both have intellisense which helps me locate my errors when debugging and provides typically what I need to fill in in different areas of my program. Now when it comes to languages or anything for that matter I pick it up easily.

Forgive this next statement, and please just take it as a blunt attempt at a wake-up call:
The nature of all of your topics would indicate otherwise. They are almost all about "How do I fix this basic problem?"

Here you are still talking about the mechanics of the process, not the art of the craftsmanship. What you are talking about here is 'coding', which is only one part of actual 'Software Engineering'.

For what it is worth... I would have spent a lot less time asking everyone else about what language to write this in, and a lot more time actually writing it. Write it in 5 different langaguages if you like. Then you will have the experience to decide for yourself which actually clicks with you: C+, C# WinForms, C# WPF, Objective-C (you said it might be on Macs).

Quote

I am basiclly wanting to create some shipping/receiving software. It will need to be run on some machines(the problem is I am not sure if they are macs or PCs) I also would like to make it compatible with a bar code scanner. Basiclly this software will allow a user to login with a password, enter in shipping/receiving type of information whether it be through a keyboard or a barcode scanner, and then send an email to the owners and managers of the company.

I realize this is not the entire project spec. But this part would have been about a week of spare time (a couple hours in the evening and 1-2 days of the weekend.)

Jumping in and writing it would give you experience to go along with your education.

[Gmoney93079]

tlhIn`toq, on 31 December 2011 - 02:22 PM, said:

Gmoney93079, on 31 December 2011 - 03:00 PM, said:

Ok I understand what you are saying but I do have experience in programming through school and what I have been teaching myself.

I think you are confusing 'experience' with 'theoretical understanding from education'. You can read every book on sex education. But until you have sex it is all just theory waiting to be put into practice. And for both of these subjects the practice is key. Getting through the basic mechanics and being really, really good at either requires a lot more than just book knowledge or following a step-by-step guide.

Gmoney93079, on 31 December 2011 - 03:00 PM, said:

I understand how to develop a program, and then learning the language is not hard especially with Eclipse, or Visual studios for they both have intellisense which helps me locate my errors when debugging and provides typically what I need to fill in in different areas of my program. Now when it comes to languages or anything for that matter I pick it up easily.

Forgive this next statement, and please just take it as a blunt attempt at a wake-up call:
The nature of all of your topics would indicate otherwise. They are almost all about "How do I fix this basic problem?"

Here you are still talking about the mechanics of the process, not the art of the craftsmanship. What you are talking about here is 'coding', which is only one part of actual 'Software Engineering'.

For what it is worth... I would have spent a lot less time asking everyone else about what language to write this in, and a lot more time actually writing it. Write it in 5 different langaguages if you like. Then you will have the experience to decide for yourself which actually clicks with you: C+, C# WinForms, C# WPF, Objective-C (you said it might be on Macs).

Quote

I am basiclly wanting to create some shipping/receiving software. It will need to be run on some machines(the problem is I am not sure if they are macs or PCs) I also would like to make it compatible with a bar code scanner. Basiclly this software will allow a user to login with a password, enter in shipping/receiving type of information whether it be through a keyboard or a barcode scanner, and then send an email to the owners and managers of the company.

I realize this is not the entire project spec. But this part would have been about a week of spare time (a couple hours in the evening and 1-2 days of the weekend.)

Jumping in and writing it would give you experience to go along with your education.

It's ok to be blunt and I understand what your saying, yes I have not worked for a company, but I do have educational experience in coding. Yes I could write in 5 or 10 languages, but that would be wasting my time, and I don't have time to waste. That is why I'm asking someone such as yourself, what language would be best. When it comes to my previous posts, they were simple problems recently how to fix, such as haveing the right libraries for Java, etc.... What I do understand is the concepts of programming, such as making a flowchart for the design of my program, programming pseudocode for it and then working on the actual programming. I'm just trying to solve which language to use, for I want to have the right tools of the trade. By the way this is my wake up call, for I am trying to accomplish a task I have never tried before. So the only assistance I really need is which language to use for my task for the languages I have used before are Android, C++, Java, and some C#. Thanks

[Oler1s]

> but I do have educational experience in coding.

Worthless. I'm sorry, but the real experience is you sitting down and writing sizeable programs with clear budgets in mind. Your educational experience so far is not compareable.

> what language would be best.

What you know and are productive in.

> What I do understand is the concepts of programming

No you don't. When you are working regularly on > 10K loc programs, you can start speaking about understanding programming. Until then, you don't know what it is to actually program. You really don't, until you are doing it yourself.

> So the only assistance I really need is which language to use for my task for the languages I have used before are Android, C++, Java, and some C#.

Use the language you are most productive in.

[tlhIn`toq]

I won't repeat what Oler1s said because he said it so well and straight to the point. I couldn't have said it better myself. I will however add on to it.

Gmoney93079, on 31 December 2011 - 04:24 PM, said:

What I do understand is the concepts of programming, such as making a flowchart for the design of my program, programming pseudocode for it and then working on the actual programming.

That right there exemplifies the gap between school and real world experience. Nobody I know does that crap; and hasn't for a decade. That's stuff from 1980's high school BASIC that is still part of today's curriculum because (1) Nobody has taken it out and (2) padding the curriculum so 8 months of education takes 4 years is how you get 4 years of tuition out of thousands of students.

In the real world it is more about

• Discussions and emails for features,
  
• Discussions of future direction so todays app can grow instead of need to be rebuilt from scratch
  
• white boarding
  • The GUI
    
  • The interaction of the work process
    
  • The real-world order of operation
    
  • and stubbing out important parts of classes.

Gmoney93079, on 31 December 2011 - 04:24 PM, said:

I'm just trying to solve which language to use, for I want to have the right tools of the trade. By the way this is my wake up call, for I am trying to accomplish a task I have never tried before. So the only assistance I really need is which language to use for my task for the languages I have used before are Android, C++, Java, and some C#. Thanks

Ok. I'll tell you. Do it in C# and in Window Presentation Foundation. That is the planned future for all Windows programs, and the C# will let you do Xbox creation. I've done WinForms for years and wished I had made the jump to WPF before this last month. Since it is all equally new to you then starting with WPF is the best direction you can go.

Now go forth and code. I look forward to seeing your first draft in a week.

[Gmoney93079]

Oler1s, on 31 December 2011 - 03:30 PM, said:

> but I do have educational experience in coding.

Worthless. I'm sorry, but the real experience is you sitting down and writing sizeable programs with clear budgets in mind. Your educational experience so far is not compareable.

> what language would be best.

What you know and are productive in.

> What I do understand is the concepts of programming

No you don't. When you are working regularly on > 10K loc programs, you can start speaking about understanding programming. Until then, you don't know what it is to actually program. You really don't, until you are doing it yourself.

> So the only assistance I really need is which language to use for my task for the languages I have used before are Android, C++, Java, and some C#.

Use the language you are most productive in.

Ok so obviously I should just not bother asking any of you so far regarding my task. You may consider my education worthless I don't. Just because you have experience does not mean you are better at the task than I am, and that I can't do what I'm trying to do. You could be lazy, not program efficiently and many other things. I do not want to go into a battle on this matter, all I'm asking is one simple question that I was looking for experienced programmers for help on. To me C++ maybe too much for my task, Java may not work due to not having the user be able to understand how to download the environment, C# may not work like C++ if they use macs, Android will not work due to it not being for a mobile device. So I will ask again in a different way, if you were designing some shipping/receiving software, what language would you use and why, thanks.

tlhIn`toq, on 31 December 2011 - 03:52 PM, said:

I won't repeat what Oler1s said because he said it so well and straight to the point. I couldn't have said it better myself. I will however add on to it.

Gmoney93079, on 31 December 2011 - 04:24 PM, said:

What I do understand is the concepts of programming, such as making a flowchart for the design of my program, programming pseudocode for it and then working on the actual programming.

That right there exemplifies the gap between school and real world experience. Nobody I know does that crap; and hasn't for a decade. That's stuff from 1980's high school BASIC that is still part of today's curriculum because (1) Nobody has taken it out and (2) padding the curriculum so 8 months of education takes 4 years is how you get 4 years of tuition out of thousands of students.

In the real world it is more about

• Discussions and emails for features,
  
• Discussions of future direction so todays app can grow instead of need to be rebuilt from scratch
  
• white boarding
  • The GUI
    
  • The interaction of the work process
    
  • The real-world order of operation
    
  • and stubbing out important parts of classes.

Gmoney93079, on 31 December 2011 - 04:24 PM, said:

I'm just trying to solve which language to use, for I want to have the right tools of the trade. By the way this is my wake up call, for I am trying to accomplish a task I have never tried before. So the only assistance I really need is which language to use for my task for the languages I have used before are Android, C++, Java, and some C#. Thanks

Ok. I'll tell you. Do it in C# and in Window Presentation Foundation. That is the planned future for all Windows programs, and the C# will let you do Xbox creation. I've done WinForms for years and wished I had made the jump to WPF before this last month. Since it is all equally new to you then starting with WPF is the best direction you can go.

Now go forth and code. I look forward to seeing your first draft in a week.

Thank you a simplified answer finally, I will try that and see what I can produce for I was doing window forms just now as well, and found it similar to Android. I will check out the one you recommended and then work from there, thanks for the assist;)

[tlhIn`toq]

Gmoney93079, on 31 December 2011 - 05:05 PM, said:

Ok so obviously I should just not bother asking any of you so far regarding my task. You may consider my education worthless I don't. Just because you have experience does not mean you are better at the task than I am, and that I can't do what I'm trying to do. You could be lazy, not program efficiently and many other things. I do not want to go into a battle on this matter, all I'm asking is one simple question that I was looking for experienced programmers for help on. To me C++ maybe too much for my task, Java may not work due to not having the user be able to understand how to download the environment, C# may not work like C++ if they use macs, Android will not work due to it not being for a mobile device. So I will ask again in a different way, if you were designing some shipping/receiving software, what language would you use and why, thanks.

I'm really sorry you decided to take such a dark and defensive position on this. I am known for being nothing if not frank. I see no reason to change now.

You've been told several times to just do it in C#.
I said it in Post #3
Baavgai seconded that in post #4
Then I again said it in post #10

And still you ask what language to use...

Gmoney93079, on 31 December 2011 - 05:05 PM, said:

So I will ask again in a different way, if you were designing some shipping/receiving software, what language would you use and why, thanks.

You seem to be stalling. If you keep asking this question, and keep putting off the actual coding of the project while you "gather your details and formulate a plan", then you never actual fail at coding it; because you never really start.

As of this last post you seem to be spoiling for fight and looking for some mythical programming language you can use on Mac, Windows, Androids, Xbox, your home blueray player and the navigation system of a 2009 Toyota.

You say you want the opinions of experienced development professionals then get offended when their advice isn't blowing sunshine up your skirt about how valuable your college courses were.

I'll be unsubscribing from this thread now since you've taken it as far as you {productively} can, without further insulting the experienced professionals you are asking the opinion of, which you seem to hold in both high and low regard depending on your emotional reaction to what they have to say.

tlhIn`toq, on 31 December 2011 - 03:22 PM, said:

Quote

I am basiclly wanting to create some shipping/receiving software. It will need to be run on some machines(the problem is I am not sure if they are macs or PCs) I also would like to make it compatible with a bar code scanner. Basiclly this software will allow a user to login with a password, enter in shipping/receiving type of information whether it be through a keyboard or a barcode scanner, and then send an email to the owners and managers of the company.

I realize this is not the entire project spec. But this part would have been about a week of spare time (a couple hours in the evening and 1-2 days of the weekend.)

It's a week of work and you've wasted that much in this thread. I think you need to quit gabbing about the project and actual start working on it. Let's be honest: After all this time you should have all the conceptual work done. None of that is language specific. Working out the objects and the interactions and the look etc. has NOTHING to do with the language of choice. So write the damned code already and again, I look forward to seeing what you have done this time next week.

[Gmoney93079]

LOL;) well regarding this time this week we will see, sorry for asking which language so many times, I do have certain regards for you, but I don't appreciate someone criticizing my education. Regards to this week hard to say since I started school again today, but I should have a better idea of what to do as soon as I talk to the business owner. I kept asking for I wanted to get it done but have been extremely busy. My choice though is still unsure for I need more info from the owner. So I think I'm just going to code it in both and work from there. Thanks for the help and letting me aware of the WPF in C#. So far C# is very interesting to me especially with the Drag and Drop, it's simalar to Android. Anyways when I have something more completed I'll let you be aware you can count on that.

This post has been edited by macosxnerd101: 02 January 2012 - 04:57 PM
Reason for edit:: Removed quote

[tlhIn`toq]

There really is no reason to quote entire long posts when it is the immediately preceeding comment. That just makes the entire thread a mile long.

Can someone with privileges in this forum please delete the OP's unneeded long quotes to make this thread more readable?

[macosxnerd101]

Quote

So far C# is very interesting to me especially with the Drag and Drop, it's simalar to Android.

The Android GUI Builder with Eclipse is better than a lot of the Swing GUI Builders. A lot of the code it produces is still cumbersome and ugly though. You will get much cleaner and more maintainable code writing it by hand. Microsoft has put significantly more effort into providing a quality GUI Builder than has been done in the Java world. When in Java, write your code by hand. With .NET, it's a different story.