Hi Michaylov,
I'll try to answer step by step:
- WPF and Windows Forms are two different GUI libraries written by Microsoft in the .NET Framework. Windows Forms is based on the Windows API and uses the GDI calls (graphic device interface), whereas WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) is written completely from scratch and uses DirectX to paint on the screen - WPF is completely vector graphics and the concepts are nearer to HTML and XML (its graphics language XAML is largely inspired by XML).
- start and learn the .NET Framework may a hard thing, maybe it is better to buy a book like "C# for Dummies" or any other C# beginners book. For X# there is no such literature as X# is a niche language - see below
- the market for X# is primarily for people coming from other Xbase languages like Visual Objects, Xbase++, Harbour and VFP, to migrate their applications to the .NET Framework. Personally I like the X# language because it is easier to read than C#, but has the same power - and has a fantastic development team
Wolfgang
P.S. you should ask yourself what you would like to do: write Windows GUI programs, write web applications or web services. In my small company we are two that use VO and X#, and two that use PHP to write web based applications
Clipper Summer'87
Clipper Summer'87
Wolfgang Riedmann
Meran, South Tyrol, Italy
wolfgang@riedmann.it
https://www.riedmann.it - https://docs.xsharp.it
Meran, South Tyrol, Italy
wolfgang@riedmann.it
https://www.riedmann.it - https://docs.xsharp.it
Clipper Summer'87
Hello Michaylov
You write: "What is confusing me generally is where to start"?
I tried to address this point in my post in Chit-Chat "Windows Through .Net".
IMO there are two aspects to learning - one is tackling the theory (little by little) and the second is to write a few programs as you go. There is nothing like getting things to work as expected to give you the motivation to carry on.
The good news is that there is a direct analogy in the real-world for everything that can be done by the electronics in your pc. Two differences are that the time periods we are talking about: are micro-seconds max in the pc and pc electronic time slicing is discrete (i.e not infinitely variable as in real life). Learn the implications of this and you are halfway there.
I would say if you can remember your Clipper days maybe you are best trying to build on that using X-Sharp and help you will get here.
X# is oriented towards business applications, more to the way you you may have been thinking in those far off Clipper days.
C# (from which X# is derived) is designed for far broader range of Target Applications - basically anything and everything. Documentation for it abounds, but most goes deep quickly making it difficult for the newcomer to follow.
As you learn, the X# to C# relationship will fall into place.
Which way to go is a subjective choice only you can make. I would make the point that I think you are more likely to get direct, easily understood help in this X# forum.
It is a trade-off between learning and time taken to do it.
Terry
You write: "What is confusing me generally is where to start"?
I tried to address this point in my post in Chit-Chat "Windows Through .Net".
IMO there are two aspects to learning - one is tackling the theory (little by little) and the second is to write a few programs as you go. There is nothing like getting things to work as expected to give you the motivation to carry on.
The good news is that there is a direct analogy in the real-world for everything that can be done by the electronics in your pc. Two differences are that the time periods we are talking about: are micro-seconds max in the pc and pc electronic time slicing is discrete (i.e not infinitely variable as in real life). Learn the implications of this and you are halfway there.
I would say if you can remember your Clipper days maybe you are best trying to build on that using X-Sharp and help you will get here.
X# is oriented towards business applications, more to the way you you may have been thinking in those far off Clipper days.
C# (from which X# is derived) is designed for far broader range of Target Applications - basically anything and everything. Documentation for it abounds, but most goes deep quickly making it difficult for the newcomer to follow.
As you learn, the X# to C# relationship will fall into place.
Which way to go is a subjective choice only you can make. I would make the point that I think you are more likely to get direct, easily understood help in this X# forum.
It is a trade-off between learning and time taken to do it.
Terry
Clipper Summer'87
Thank you guys for your patience and for helping me to find the right way for myself.
@Terry,
I really did not understand the half of your statement, p. E. where to find "...Chit-Chat "Windows Through .Net" ?
Generally my problems with the 2 aspects of learning are first that I am not sure which theory is the best for myself, as there are a lot of programming languages nowadays and second I am not able to set a task for myself in order to "...and the second is to write a few programs as you go". I will just not comment "...direct analogy in the real-world for everything that can be done by the electronics in your pc", as I did not find the connection to the programming.
@Wolfgang,
For me it is difficult to find the fine difference and respectively to decide which way to go, regarding: "P.S. you should ask yourself what you would like to do: write Windows GUI programs, write web applications or web services". I guess HTML, CSS & scripting language is easier then X# or C#, however in order to start in any direction, I need a task, a request to do something in order to start realizing it using x# or HTML. ON the other hand, the customer, who will request such a task will expect me to be a professional and to finish the job quick and with quality. What I miss is the teacher, the master, the sifu to take me under his hood and to teach me by giving me some small tasks and correcting me on my way.
@Dick,
your statement below is exactly what I miss - the picture of what language is used for what solutions and what are the connections between them:
"If you are trying html+css, are you aiming web programs? Because that is a whole different story. Depending on what you want to do with it, you will probably want to use script based languages like PHP or Javascript. On a Windows server you can also use ASP; the "code behind" can be a .Net language like C# and no doubt X# will work too."
@Terry,
I really did not understand the half of your statement, p. E. where to find "...Chit-Chat "Windows Through .Net" ?
Generally my problems with the 2 aspects of learning are first that I am not sure which theory is the best for myself, as there are a lot of programming languages nowadays and second I am not able to set a task for myself in order to "...and the second is to write a few programs as you go". I will just not comment "...direct analogy in the real-world for everything that can be done by the electronics in your pc", as I did not find the connection to the programming.
@Wolfgang,
For me it is difficult to find the fine difference and respectively to decide which way to go, regarding: "P.S. you should ask yourself what you would like to do: write Windows GUI programs, write web applications or web services". I guess HTML, CSS & scripting language is easier then X# or C#, however in order to start in any direction, I need a task, a request to do something in order to start realizing it using x# or HTML. ON the other hand, the customer, who will request such a task will expect me to be a professional and to finish the job quick and with quality. What I miss is the teacher, the master, the sifu to take me under his hood and to teach me by giving me some small tasks and correcting me on my way.
@Dick,
your statement below is exactly what I miss - the picture of what language is used for what solutions and what are the connections between them:
"If you are trying html+css, are you aiming web programs? Because that is a whole different story. Depending on what you want to do with it, you will probably want to use script based languages like PHP or Javascript. On a Windows server you can also use ASP; the "code behind" can be a .Net language like C# and no doubt X# will work too."
Clipper Summer'87
snip[ For me it is difficult to find the fine difference and respectively to decide which way to go, ]
Which tool and skill for the job.
snip[ who will request such a task will expect me to be a professional and to finish the job quick and with quality. What I miss is the teacher ]
This is the issue for sure. I am 65 and old Clipper, still VO as it moves to legacy and new is PHP/Node/CSS etc and say .NET #sharp. Have 5 full web developers and desktop is legacy. My teacher is my developers and there 80 years of web and SQL. Constantly we get work where client choice of price thing it is a screw up. One Wordpress had 27 plugins and now 3. Developers skill vary so much. Be careful of the teacher. They do not know they are not a good teacher or good developer.
snip[ For me it is difficult to find the fine difference and respectively to decide which way to go ]
Need a project, fun or money making. The later timelines, budgets and be skilled at deployment, support, billing and security and how many years to learn. I have bought 4 small development companies that were more than 1 man shows and they could not keep it working. Maybe find a team that you have skills they could use and you learn off them. A lot of times you will realise at a certain age it is not worth being in the 21st century business and demands.
Wish you luck. The world moves so fast now.
Which tool and skill for the job.
snip[ who will request such a task will expect me to be a professional and to finish the job quick and with quality. What I miss is the teacher ]
This is the issue for sure. I am 65 and old Clipper, still VO as it moves to legacy and new is PHP/Node/CSS etc and say .NET #sharp. Have 5 full web developers and desktop is legacy. My teacher is my developers and there 80 years of web and SQL. Constantly we get work where client choice of price thing it is a screw up. One Wordpress had 27 plugins and now 3. Developers skill vary so much. Be careful of the teacher. They do not know they are not a good teacher or good developer.
snip[ For me it is difficult to find the fine difference and respectively to decide which way to go ]
Need a project, fun or money making. The later timelines, budgets and be skilled at deployment, support, billing and security and how many years to learn. I have bought 4 small development companies that were more than 1 man shows and they could not keep it working. Maybe find a team that you have skills they could use and you learn off them. A lot of times you will realise at a certain age it is not worth being in the 21st century business and demands.
Wish you luck. The world moves so fast now.
Phil McGuinness
Clipper Summer'87
Hi Michaylov,
maybe I see it too hard: it took me years and many energies to make the step from Visual Objects to .NET/X#/WPF/MVVM, and I consider myself to be far from mastering it really, even if I think I'm a good VO programmer with many years of experience - I make my living with programming for more than 30 years now.
Starting at you age a professional programming business and don't know where to go IMHO has too less chances to succeed.
Your knowledge of Clipper/Dbase is really outdated, and not more a help. The world has really changed a lot, and the changing speed is increasing too. It may sound hard, but to learn a new job in the knowledge industry at your age is simply not possible.
Wolfgang
maybe I see it too hard: it took me years and many energies to make the step from Visual Objects to .NET/X#/WPF/MVVM, and I consider myself to be far from mastering it really, even if I think I'm a good VO programmer with many years of experience - I make my living with programming for more than 30 years now.
Starting at you age a professional programming business and don't know where to go IMHO has too less chances to succeed.
Your knowledge of Clipper/Dbase is really outdated, and not more a help. The world has really changed a lot, and the changing speed is increasing too. It may sound hard, but to learn a new job in the knowledge industry at your age is simply not possible.
Wolfgang
Wolfgang Riedmann
Meran, South Tyrol, Italy
wolfgang@riedmann.it
https://www.riedmann.it - https://docs.xsharp.it
Meran, South Tyrol, Italy
wolfgang@riedmann.it
https://www.riedmann.it - https://docs.xsharp.it
Clipper Summer'87
Hi Michaylov,
Chit-chat is a forum and Terry is referring to an interesting analogy we wrote to compare programming with some real life situations. The link is:
https://www.xsharp.eu/forum/public-chit ... hrough-net
I think your first question may be: what do I want/need to write? You are talking about customers. What do they want you to write? Or what do you want to write and offer?
Most new programs nowadays are web based. Languages to write web based programs are not necessarily easier than C#/X# etc. A Windows Pc is more flexible to get things done than a webbrowser.
You can choose between many languages and asking "which one should I pick" is the same as asking: I want to drive, which car should I buy? Car experts would first ask you: do you drive short distances or long, do you need to bring a whole boot of tools for your work or will it be holiday trips? Even after you have answered that you will probably have chosen between a short range EV and a large petrol SUV, but it's you who have to decide which brand and model to buy, depending on your own likes.
Given your Clipper backgrounds, there is some advantage in starting with X# especially if your programs are mainly targeted to Pc/servers but also just to learn it a bit. Or C# if you want to start with a book or on line examples, for which there are many more for C#. But indeed, C# is a nightmare with the {} to contain programming blocks. More than once I forgot one and Visual Studio draws a few 100 red lines with supposed errors because of 1 missing }, and then it's hard to detect where. X# doesn't have that problem and it should not be too difficult to start a new WPF or Winforms project, create a window, but some control on it and make the program do something when a button is pressed.
Even though .Net programming is different than Clipper, knowing how to search a DBF, add records and fill some fields will also help you start in X# .
Dick
Chit-chat is a forum and Terry is referring to an interesting analogy we wrote to compare programming with some real life situations. The link is:
https://www.xsharp.eu/forum/public-chit ... hrough-net
I think your first question may be: what do I want/need to write? You are talking about customers. What do they want you to write? Or what do you want to write and offer?
Most new programs nowadays are web based. Languages to write web based programs are not necessarily easier than C#/X# etc. A Windows Pc is more flexible to get things done than a webbrowser.
You can choose between many languages and asking "which one should I pick" is the same as asking: I want to drive, which car should I buy? Car experts would first ask you: do you drive short distances or long, do you need to bring a whole boot of tools for your work or will it be holiday trips? Even after you have answered that you will probably have chosen between a short range EV and a large petrol SUV, but it's you who have to decide which brand and model to buy, depending on your own likes.
Given your Clipper backgrounds, there is some advantage in starting with X# especially if your programs are mainly targeted to Pc/servers but also just to learn it a bit. Or C# if you want to start with a book or on line examples, for which there are many more for C#. But indeed, C# is a nightmare with the {} to contain programming blocks. More than once I forgot one and Visual Studio draws a few 100 red lines with supposed errors because of 1 missing }, and then it's hard to detect where. X# doesn't have that problem and it should not be too difficult to start a new WPF or Winforms project, create a window, but some control on it and make the program do something when a button is pressed.
Even though .Net programming is different than Clipper, knowing how to search a DBF, add records and fill some fields will also help you start in X# .
Dick
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lumberjack
- Posts: 727
- Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2015 3:11 pm
- Location: South Africa
Clipper Summer'87
Hi M,
Well XIDE has some templates of different examples that you can just open and compile.
If you feel a bit more adventurous in the Article/User contributions I have an article series about Data Driven applications that use Hello World as example, maybe that could get you going to understand the move from Clipper to .NET and X#. First couple of articles were done using Vulcan.NET but the principles stays the same....
Well XIDE has some templates of different examples that you can just open and compile.
If you feel a bit more adventurous in the Article/User contributions I have an article series about Data Driven applications that use Hello World as example, maybe that could get you going to understand the move from Clipper to .NET and X#. First couple of articles were done using Vulcan.NET but the principles stays the same....
______________________
Johan Nel
Boshof, South Africa
Johan Nel
Boshof, South Africa
Clipper Summer'87
Thank you, Johan for your reply. Could you provide me with the link to your article series?
Clipper Summer'87
Hello Michaylov,
https://www.xsharp.eu/articles/user-contributions
Dick
See Articles/User contributions on this site, Johan's article is one of the 3:Clipper wrote:Thank you, Johan for your reply. Could you provide me with the link to your article series?
https://www.xsharp.eu/articles/user-contributions
Dick
-
lumberjack
- Posts: 727
- Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2015 3:11 pm
- Location: South Africa