Learning the Fundamentals *without* using Visual Studio

  • Thread starter Thread starter Frankie
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Frankie

I am looking for tutorials, articles, etc that can help to enlighten me on
what's "really going on" or what's required to create a .NET application
(particularly Windows Forms) WITHOUT the use of Visual Studio. I understand
that VS does a lot of things for us, but I want to know what those things
are - and do them manually - just for the didactic benefit.

Any recommendations?

Thanks!

FWIW: Yes, I have googled this and have found plenty of step-by-step
tutorials, but they all make use of Visual Studio and drag-dropping
controls. That's not what I'm looking for.
 
Maybe you can use Visual Studio to create a simple application, then close
VS and inspect the files that have been created with your favorite text
editor (source files, project files, resource files, etc.). Making sense out
of these files should not be too difficult and you can play and make changes
with your text editor, and compile with the command line compiler (csc.exe
for C#). But I would not start by trying to type everything from scratch in
a text editor.

Bruno
 
Frankie,
I am looking for tutorials, articles, etc that can help to enlighten me on
what's "really going on" or what's required to create a .NET application
(particularly Windows Forms) WITHOUT the use of Visual Studio. I understand
that VS does a lot of things for us, but I want to know what those things
are - and do them manually - just for the didactic benefit.
Click to expand...
That does probably not help you in your goal. The program languages used are
all to create in fact DLL/Exe which contain CLI code, that will be
translated by the Net framework to the by the OS or whatever you name that
used code.

If you want to learn more about the framework than a book about the general
approach would help you better.

Probably will a search on google with text as "understanding the net
framework" bring you quicker by the goal that you did describe.

Just my thought,

Cor
 
Why not to download .NET SDK in this case?
You can use SDK Help, notepad and command line csc.exe to buld you app.
No using VS at all.
I am looking for tutorials, articles, etc that can help to enlighten me on
what's "really going on" or what's required to create a .NET application
(particularly Windows Forms) WITHOUT the use of Visual Studio. I understand
that VS does a lot of things for us, but I want to know what those things
are - and do them manually - just for the didactic benefit.

Any recommendations?
Click to expand...

--
WBR,
Michael Nemtsev :: blog: http://spaces.msn.com/laflour

"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not
cease to be insipid." (c) Friedrich Nietzsche
 
I am looking for tutorials, articles, etc that can help to enlighten me on
what's "really going on" or what's required to create a .NET application
(particularly Windows Forms) WITHOUT the use of Visual Studio. I understand
that VS does a lot of things for us, but I want to know what those things
are - and do them manually - just for the didactic benefit.
Click to expand...

VS really doesn't do much. Whenever you create a new Window Form
application, VS add a new class deriving from Form to the project, adds a
Main method to this class to act as the entry point for the application and
that's it. When you add a button to the form, VS addds a private button
member variable to the class, instanciate it in the constructor, set its
properties and adds it to the Form's Controls collection. You can have a
look at the generated code and you'll see that there isn't much at all and
that nothing is mysterious.

If you are already confortable with C#, you should be able to do it
yourself without any problems. If you're not, i'd suggest using VS to
develop your first application to get used to the C# syntax and the .NET
Framwork. Once you'll be familiar with that, the code generated by VS will
no longer be a mystery for you and you'll be able to develop an application
without using VS with the eyes closed.

If you reallly insist on learning whithout VS, i think that i heard of a
book that taught how to create window form applications by hand. It might
be one of the Charles Petzold books. You could check it out in your local
book store.
 
Frankie said:
I am looking for tutorials, articles, etc that can help to enlighten
me on what's "really going on" or what's required to create a .NET
application (particularly Windows Forms) WITHOUT the use of Visual
Studio. I understand that VS does a lot of things for us, but I want
to know what those things are - and do them manually - just for the
didactic benefit.

Any recommendations?
Click to expand...

For a general better understanding: Have a look at Sharp Develop
(http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/), a free (open source) IDE.
Even though this also supports the most of the Drag and Drop stuff, but
if it comes to include Interop Assemblies etc. then some manual steps
are required and you really start to understand, what's going on and
what's needed.

For only having a look at a Windows-Forms App, then simply fire up
notepad, type in everything manual, something like this:
class MyForm : Form
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
new MyForm().Show();
}
}
And add some controls and functionality... there isn't really something
special in a Windows Forms, what is done with all the drag and drop stuff...

Markus
 
Frankie said:
I am looking for tutorials, articles, etc that can help to enlighten me on
what's "really going on" or what's required to create a .NET application
(particularly Windows Forms) WITHOUT the use of Visual Studio. I understand
that VS does a lot of things for us, but I want to know what those things
are - and do them manually - just for the didactic benefit.

Any recommendations?

Thanks!

FWIW: Yes, I have googled this and have found plenty of step-by-step
tutorials, but they all make use of Visual Studio and drag-dropping
controls. That's not what I'm looking for.
Click to expand...

I would suggest still using Visual Studio, but avoiding the designers.
That way you don't need to worry about the *building* side of things,
and can concentrate on the language itself (and the libraries) - but
without leaning on the VS designer as a crutch.
 
Use the SDK. That'll have your head buzzing for a few days while you get
the hang of things, but once you know how to code without VS.net you'll be
streets ahead of the competition when you start using an IDE.

Regards

John Timney (MVP)
 
John,

I found that idea from Michael Nemtsev to use the SDK as well the best idea
in this thread to get a first view on it. Better than my idea, although I
still then would try to get an overview on Net first.

Cor
 
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