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Ok, I'm an old guy. Don't hate me. I spent my IT time as a desktop developer for a large state agency, but that was 20+ years ago. I still have a couple commercial apps from those days (VB6) that are on the market. As a last 'hurrah', I'd like to dust off my keyboard and re-write these as .net apps... but I'm .net ignorant. The main program I have is 500+ pages of code. It's a daunting task. I'm looking for some sort of training that would apply to someone with my background and skill-set to help me get some traction here. All I can find that comes close is beginning programmer .net stuff, and that really doesn't fit. Is there anyone out there that went through this transition and can make a recommendation? I'd really appreciate it! Thanks...

What I have tried:

I've looked for training with Shelly Cashman books, YouTube, Udemy, etc. Nothing fits.
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Updated 3-Oct-21 21:20pm
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3 solutions

Nobody is going to hate you for being old - think of it as being better than the alternative - many of us are getting on in years. I'm 62 for example.
Forget YouTube - most of the stuff there is garbage just there to get likes and subscribes to monetize a channel. The creators almost always know nothing about how to make a video, how to teach, or in many cases how to code either.

Grab a book on C# (Wrox, Addison Wesley, and MS Press do good ones) and read it through from the beginning to the end doing all the exercises. Your existing development experience should make it pretty simple, as you already will know how to convert a spec into a design.

It's not as good an approach as a course with a human teacher, but it's a good second. It's how I got into .NET many years ago.

Stick at it: good luck!
 
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Ted Watson 2021 1-Oct-21 11:20am    
I'd been avoiding switching from VB to C#. I was concerned that it would be too big of a transition in skills. Do you have thoughts on that? Thanks...
OriginalGriff 1-Oct-21 11:40am    
The skills are the same, it's the framework investment you are dropping - but that's the same for VB to VB.NET. You know how much of your code is actually "knowing VB" and how much is "knowing how to program Windows in VB6" - not a whole lot in comparison!

Breaking the VB link and moving to C# make's it easier because it's more obviously a different environment and there is no temptation to use - say - "On Error Resume Next" instead of handling it properly with a "try ... catch" block for example.
A competent developer can pick up 50% or more of C# in an afternoon! It's the .NET framework that takes time in large amounts simply because it's so huge and feature rich.

And it's not just because any language which includes "On Error Resume Next" should be executed at dawn, honest! :laugh:
Take a look at .NET Book Zero by Charles Petzold[^]. It's free and an excellent introduction to .NET and C#. I learned it a few years ago when I was approaching 70.
 
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Ted Watson 2021 1-Oct-21 11:22am    
Thanks, Richard. I turned 70 a couple months ago. My brain still seems to be perking, but I'm concerned about going to a completely different platform (C#). Do you think the risk vs reward would be worth it?
Richard MacCutchan 1-Oct-21 11:30am    
It depends what you want it for. I studied it because I had never used .NET in my professional life and was curious to see what all the fuss was about. I learned Android, Javascript, PHP, Powershell and Python for exactly the same reason. TBH if you have any sort of ability in programming it should not be too difficult once you understand the basic idea of .NET. And anything written by Charles Petzold is pretty easy to follow.
In response to your comments re transitioning to C# instead of VB ...
Many years ago I had this book recommended to me for upgrading my skills (actually "our skills", the whole team was involved)...The Book of Visual Basic 2005: .NET Insight for Classic VB Developers: Amazon.co.uk: Matthew MacDonald: 9781593270742: Books[^]
It did a reasonably good job of weaning me off old-school VB habits and towards a .NET approach.

However, fairly quickly I (we) realised that we would be "better off" using C#. At first I foolishly went for "Teach yourself the C# Language in 21 Days" from Sams. That exercise reminded me to avoid supposed short cuts.

I eventually used an earlier publication of C# 9.0 in a Nutshell: The Definitive Reference: Amazon.co.uk: Albahari, Joseph: 9781098100964: Books[^] to get me up to speed (and as a reference - I still prefer books to Google, I am also not "young" :laugh: ) - I found out about the free Petzold book afterwards by the way, and I second Richard's recommendation

That was my personal journey but I hope the additional info helps.
 
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Ted Watson 2021 4-Oct-21 12:33pm    
Thanks. That (and these) help. I have a couple C# books I've picked up. Very basic ones, but I'll get them back on top of the stack on my table :-)
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