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I have no experience with online programming courses, but I'm a bit suspicious about them (I'm talking about payd courses, not about tutorials of course). Expecially if you are already experienced with programming in any other language, I think the best is to buy a good book, and make experiments with sample application (you can download plenty of them from Code Project).
Cheers,
Sauro
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I second that.
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Good post! 
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Online programming courses suck. Many of which will teach you a way to do something that is the wrong way, skipping fundamentals which will later be harder to learn. The easiest way to learn and master programming is to start with a task. A common one that new programmers often choose is the task of making an encrypted, peer-peer chat application. It covers all of the bases and is just hard enough to teach you something good. Also, a beginners book can be very helpful because you can flip through it rapidly.
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Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote: will teach you a way to do something that is the wrong way
Of course, the books I've seen do that too. 
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You are correct. However, the books at least have to go through publishing whereas online tutorials are often copy and pasted outright theft of others work with no real knowledge by the other. Or worse, in online tutorials, the Author usually starts with an overly complex example to demonstrate a trivial task.
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I also recommend starting with a book. But I found that it wasn't enough for me so I took a course and it made a lot of difference. The ability to speak with and get feedback from someone who knows the subject can be quite valuable.
At the moment I find myself having to learn [the .net language that shall not be named] so I will likely buy a book today.
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I recommend Option Strict On as the very first line.
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I shall endeavor to check that that is in their coding standards... if they have any.
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I added it to my vbc.rsp file -- putting it in every file is just silly.
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that turns you into an advanced VB jockey.
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If it's worth doing (it isn't), it's worth doing right.
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I agree.
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Only three things you need to know,
1) Option Explicit
2) AndElse, AndOr (OMFG)
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When I was looking at a list of differences between the langauges on Wikipedia yesterday I noticed that they have IsNot; I want that in C#.
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object1.ReferenceEquals(object2)
Edit, shows how much I use it. should be
Object.ReferenceEquals(object1, object2);
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T M Gray wrote: Once you have a grasp on the basics
In my opinion, neither ASP.net nor WinForms is "the basics" -- new developers should learn "the basics" of the language before attempting ASP.net and WinForms.
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That is a very purist point of view. For many people if they don't apply what they learn to real situations they won't absorb it as well. And to me, you don't really know the basics if you can't produce something useful. If I say I have a basic knowledge of chess I would be implying I could actually play a game start to finish. Using your definition of the basics it would only imply I could identiy the pieces.
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T M Gray wrote: That is a very purist point of view
Of course.
The programs that were assigned when I first learned to program are not applicable to real situations -- they teach the fundamentals.
It's the same way they teach sports -- learn each part separately, then show how to put the pieces together to play a game.
T M Gray wrote: produce something useful
Even when I was just learning I took it upon myself to write programs I found useful using the techniques that had been covered to that point.
T M Gray wrote: I could identiy the pieces
I seem to recall reading about a chess teacher who teaches kids one piece at a time -- some exercises that teach just how knights move, just how rooks move, etc. and how they can be used together. And only after the students have become familiar with each of the pieces, starts to mix the pieces together.
A better, more structured, teaching technique is more likely to produce better practitioners.
It seems there are a lot of "developers" here who learned the easy way and never learned the intricacies of for loops -- their educations are stunted by not getting the fundamentals the way we old dogs did.
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I watched several SQL related LearnVisualStudio videos a couple of years back and found them to be somewhat useful.
If you're looking for an introductory general purpose programming course, I highly recommend this[^] one @ MIT OpenCourseware. I'm also a huge fan of Stanford Engineering Everywhere[^] and am currently wading thru their course on Machine Learning[^]. Btw, SEE also has a great "Programming 101" course that features the venerable Karel (the Robot).
/ravi
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Hi Ravi
Just had a look at the SEE courses at Standford and they look like something that is useful for me. These courses in combination with some good textbooks is probably what I would go for. Thank you very much for the valuable links.
/Eiel.
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I'm going through the MIT material (I just watched video 7) -- it is very good. Thanks for pointing it out.
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Glad you like it - I think it's a great set of videos regardless of one's experience!
/ravi
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