How do I tune up my C# Skills, when I have spent the last decade coding in VB?

Question

I started my career coding in C/C++ on a vax system, but got into a few contracts where it was all VB and then became a specialist in VB, then to VB.net. Now I am aspiring to work for Microsoft and it seems that every job they post is in C/C++/C# and I can barely read C# code, it looks like the most convoluted mess to me and the inline syntax almost hurts my feelings.

I am looking for positive, non-flaming, helpful suggestions on how to pick up C# skills again. Books..Labs..etc? I have been coding simple projects using Silverlight and C# to try and work it out but it is extremely frustrating since there are very few examples that I can find that illustrate what each code set looks like. I've Googled but have yet to find anything helpful other than channel9 labs and working through some of the example code/projects from mix10.

I am not looking for a shortcut, but a good solid skills understanding. I swear it is easier to translate English to Latin than VB to C#.

Answer 1

I personally would start by converting a VB.NET project into C#, having done VB.NET it wouldn't be difficult once you got started as they both use the same underlying CLR.

Doing it this way step by step, looking up how to convert each bit you don't understand, you'll soon end up teaching yourself C# based on you're knowledge of VB.NET and you'll see they're really not that much different!

I find them very similar now I know them both, they just have a habit of doing things 'slightly' differently.

Also, have a look at this wiki page for a summary comparison of VB.NET and C#, and check out the examples at the bottom to see some basic syntax comparisons that will give you a starting point for converting VB.NET into C#.

Answer 2

Since VB.NET and C# are both first-class object-oriented .NET languages that compile down to the nearly the same CIL code, I find it fairly easy to switch between the two. Most of the learning curve in .NET comes from learning the myriad APIs; syntax doesn't take terribly long to pick up.

I'd recommend a good book that focuses on the language of C# (that is, not a framework such as Winforms, Silverlight, or WPF). A book that I really liked was Illustrated C# 2008 by Daniel Solis. It's great at exposing the C# language from end to end. (NOTE: Although it says "Illustrated" in the title, it's not filled with lots of pretty pictures. "Illustrated" simply means that the author uses lots of helpful diagrams to explain concepts).

Also, I spent a good deal of time solving math problems at http://www.projecteuler.net in order to learn C#. It helps to have real problems to solve to learn a language and Project Euler offers problems that are small enough that you can still focus on learning different aspects of the language.