C# and Web Service Resources

December 19, 2003 2:42 AM

Anybody know of any good web/book sources for learning about C# and Web Services. Also love to hear accounts of making the transition to .NET from VB or any language for that matter. My company is about to make the change.
posted by kenaman to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

I'm going through the .NET learning curve right now. I'm a work through a book sort of learner, rather than a jump all over the web type, at least to begin with, so here's a couple of books I've found to be worthwhile to start with:

'Programming C#', Jesse Liberty/O'Reilly - great for all the basic and not so basic syntax, typing and OOP implementations and a useful brief but intelligible overview of the .NET framework at the beginning.

For ASP.NET, I've been pretty happy with 'Beginning ASP.NET 1.0 with C#', one of those fat red Wrox books written by a committee. Some of the earlier content is a little basic if you've done any server-side web programming before, but it does a reasonable job of putting it all in the .NET context.

If you've done much with C++ or Java before, the transition isn't too rough - having a good handle on OO programming and design, from whatever background helps a lot.

If you're coming from something more procedural, like VB, it's a bit more of a leap, but once you get a handle on the whole OO idea, it's worth it and you'll never look back.

'The Object Primer', Scott W. Ambler/Cambridge University Press, is an excellent book for learning about Object Oriented Programming concepts.
posted by normy at 3:10 AM on December 19, 2003

I find myself writing several answers and erasing them. I'm not sure exactly what it is you are interested in doing, so it complicates my answering you.

I have been doing .net work since beta 1 (4 years or so now), so I can probably help you, but I don't really know what you want.

What type of areas are you interested in (some examples outside of what normy listed):
-GDI+
-Debugging
-Networking
-Interop
-Security
-IL coding
-Stuff like assembly packaging
-Internationalization

Normy's post seems like he has a pretty good idea of the types of things you mean by "web services", so hopefully that answers your question. If it doesn't, please elaborate what types of things you are interested in.

One more thing in closing. Normy's point about familiarity with OO is very well taken.
posted by rudyfink at 3:41 AM on December 19, 2003

Response by poster: I have been working with ASP/VB and SQL SERVER and have some familiarity with OOP concepts from a failed attempt to learn java.

C# For Experienced Programmers has been placed on my Xmas reading list.

In terms of webservices, the boss is convinced that all our windows-based applications should be re-written in C# and should get all their data from web services, to allows us to release new versions without physically going on site. Also integration with webservices would allow the software to use up to date data as it become available from whatever source.

My failure to ask a focused question reflects my lack of understanding of what I need to know about, let alone what I need to know about that ..............perhaps the paragraph above will give some help.......if not general accounts of learning C# , .Net would be read avidly
posted by kenaman at 4:05 AM on December 19, 2003

kenaman: your boss sounds like he's seen one of those 1 degree of seperation ads MS has been running. ;)

okay... first up, you don't need to re-write your apps in C# - just buy a copy of VB.net and go that way.

I'm recitent to offer much else advice about your specific situation, though - I don't really know enough about your apps to go on, sorry :\
posted by cheaily at 5:29 AM on December 19, 2003

Response by poster: Thanks a lot for the advice. I think the teething, growing, falling on our arse pains are inevitable.......
posted by kenaman at 5:51 AM on December 19, 2003

My team/company went through the transition - we had a lot of worries that it would be a huge deal, but so far it's been quite smooth - at least on my team, the folks are pretty smart and were anxious to do something other than the usual ASP/SQL Server stuff that we do. So it was a very smooth transition. We used books - especially the ASP.Net Unleashed book.

The only problems we encountered have to do with Configuration Management - its much easier to do rapid development w/ ASPs and deploy to multiple servers in a web farm and we had some bumps w/ deploying .Net apps to a similar environment. Not huge bumps, but stuff like rolling back a file - they haven't updated source safe in years, and there's no 'roll back' feature in Vis Studio when integrating w/ Source Safe - anyway, not to ramble, my point was that it's been a smooth transition and we're working through the few issues we've had.
posted by drobot at 6:57 AM on December 19, 2003