Getting started...

[Mewgen1]

For the longest time I have wanted to learn how to program stuff, but i have never been able to becasue I didn't have (at least what I believe to be) the proper software. That has changed now. My parents got me Visual Studio .NET for my last birthday. I was wondering if anybody had any suggestions for books that I could use to teach me the basics of programming with VB.NET or C++.NET. The only programming related thing I have ever done before was a quick lesson from a very old VB book at school that taught me how to print stuff on the form. About the only thing I learned from that was the basic layout of the VB IDE.

I have read a few other topics on this at this forum, but nothing I read told me what I wanted to know. I'm interested in learning the basics so I can do an internship at a local company near where I live. I also would like to learn how to work with games, like the Freespace2 SCP.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. Any links to programming sites would also be much appreciated. I would use ones on other topics but they won't open on this computer for some reason.

[D.Viddy]

You need to know what you are getting into. Visual Studio.NET is alot more complex than any of the original Visual Studios. I don't know any new .NET books, but I'm sure they are out there. Good luck.

-Dylan

[Mewgen1]

Heh, it would figure. But since I got the program I figured I might as well start there.

[MM]

Originally posted by Mewgen1
I was wondering if anybody had any suggestions for books that I could use to teach me the basics of programming with VB.NET or C++.NET.

My suggestion: If you want to start with VC++.NET, first pick up a book on C++ Language itself. You may find C++ book reviews at www.accu.org, and I personally recommend C++ Primer as the starting point.

If you want to start with VB.NET or VC#, I would recommend one of Microsoft Press's books. There is a book on C# by Charles Petzold (google for his name, and you'll find information about the book).

I also would like to learn how to work with games, like the Freespace2 SCP.

My personal suggestion would be not to jump into game programming unless you are fairly confident with the language basics (e.g. C++) themselves.

There is a .NET site by Microsoft - http://www.gotdotnet.com , and the *best* resource on .NET - http://msdn.microsoft.com

Hope this helps.

Good Luck