You’ve downloaded and installed C# Express and played with some menu options. Now what? We’ve tried to make it look friendly, but heck, it can still be intimidating if you’ve not used Visual Studio before. Here are some suggestions as to how to get started with C# Express.

 

  1. New to C# and Windows programming?

    If C# Express is going to be the first development system you have used for writing Windows application, well congratulations – you made a great choice. Seriously, C# Express is great for learning how to program, and making some great-looking Windows applications at the same time. Your programs will look like real Windows programs. Why? Because they ARE real Windows programs.

    In order to get going, I would recommend you look at the online help topics entitled How to: Create a Console Application with C# Express and How to: Create a Window Application with C# Express. You can find these articles in the C# Express Help, or on the web here and here.

    Work through the step-by-step guides, and you’ll end up creating two new projects and will learn a lot about using the Visual Studio code authoring environment along the way. Then take a while to read the Getting Started with Visual C# Express and C# Language Primer sections.

 

  1. New to C#, but with previous Windows programming experience?

    If C# Express isn’t your first programming environment, perhaps you’re a Visual Basic or Visual C++ programmer, you’ll want to get up to speed with the C# language. You can probably skim-read the C# Language Primer section, and go straight to the C# Reference section for the heavy-duty reference. You might also want to read the latest C# Language Spec.
  2. Plenty of programming experience, but new to Visual Studio?

    If you are trying out C# Express as a way to get an idea as to how Visual Studio works, I’d recommend you work through those How To: articles, and also check out the topic Using Visual C# Express. This will give you a quick introduction to how things work, and also give you some tips about entering your code faster.

There are many, many C# resources and web sites on the Internet and you'll find that almost all the sample code you can find will work perfectly. If you have any favourite resources, feel free to add them as comments to this posting.