Cons of C# documentation

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1.00/5 (2 votes)

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I am programming for few months. And I dont understand why the documentation for c# is so bad! Is that with every language?

When I am looking for answers I must always look everywhere else, than in docs. I almost always find out the answers in some amateur made websites about c#. But never in documentation. For example: if I want to modify existing application (text block or something), in documentation is not a single word about it.

So me as a begginer. I am asking people with experience. Did you started with reading documentation? Was that really useful? Or I am not alone, who do not understand that.

What I have tried:

Btw. who is using that outdated videos out there? Who is writing string as they are?! Maybe back in times, they used it, but now? It is to complicated and you can write it so much easier. Microsoft have not enough money to update these documentation videos, or what?

Posted 5-May-20 11:43am

sOwlO

Updated 5-May-20 20:54pm

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Ravi Bhavnani 5-May-20 18:21pm

> I am programming for few months.
Wait until you've been programming for 35 years. You'll eventually learn that in this field you have to figure out things for yourself. Software engineering isn't an activity like painting fences or making toast (with no offense to fence painters and makers of toast). It's not something you pick up in short order by watching a video or reading a few articles on a website.

/ravi

F-ES Sitecore 6-May-20 6:41am

"I am programming for few months" - LOL, yeah that's obvious :) Code with Microsoft technologies for a few years then switch to non-Microsoft tech and see if you still think MS has bad documentation :)

BillWoodruff 6-May-20 17:58pm

You are not at the place yet where you can have an intelligent opinion about the documentation; because the documentation doesn't hold your hand and answer your immediate needs, you whine and complain.

Get a few good books, start studying. Expect frustration. CodeProject is full of great resources to help you learn, including lists of good books, some free.

3 solutions

Solution 2

In contrast to the disadvantages... It's not that bad...

Several positive aspects of programming language documentation can be mentioned (based on Tuple class[^]):
1. there you'll find the definition of class/method/event: public static class Tuple
2. it contains information about:
  a) namespace: System
  b) library/assembly: System.Runtime.dll
  c) description of what this class/method/event is for and what it does (Remarks): A tuple is a data structure that...
  d) framework version (aplies to):

.NET
5 Preview 1
.NET Core
3.1 3.0 2.2 2.1 2.0 1.1 1.0
.NET Framework
4.8 4.7.2 4.7.1 4.7 4.6.2 4.6.1 4.6 4.5.2 4.5.1 4.5 4.0
...

3. sample code (in most cases)
4. reference to other sources (see also)

Without the documentation, we won't be able to find that basic information.

Finally, i must admit that would be much better to see more details, more examples, etc. Thankfully, on NET there's tons of tutorials, articles, tips.

Posted 5-May-20 20:36pm

Maciej Los

Solution 3

The problem with .NET is that there is a lot of documentation, but also a lot of bad or old documentation.
Maybe you can find something here: resources-to-learn-net[^]
best-resources-for-a-programming-beginner-to-learn-c[^]

Posted 5-May-20 20:56pm

RickZeeland

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phil.o · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-05T12:02:00

Solution 1

Documentation is just technical information about the objects and structures of the framework; it is not bound to C#, as there are other languages using the same framework.
Documentation is not the best choice to learn C#.

If I had to make an analogy, think about a spoken language, on one side, and a dictionary of that language, on the other. The dictionary is not meant to teach you the language; it is used to get a meaning, validate it, find synonyms, etc. Noone will ever try to learn a language by solely reading a dictionary, that would be absolute insanity. This is the same for C# and the documentation of the framework. If you want to learn C#, you have to study its syntax and grammar, its keywords, looping structures, conditional statemets, etc. When you have acquired the knowledge of the language, then you will be able to take advantage of the documentation.

That being said, I must admit that .NET documentation is far from optimal, some parts are still just generic placeholders which do not bring any useful information.

Posted 5-May-20 12:02pm

phil.o

Updated 5-May-20 12:04pm

v2

Comments

sOwlO 5-May-20 18:29pm

Thank you for your reaction. I voted five. But I heard some older guy. And he said, that they had to learn everything from documentation in Basic, back in the days. Because, there was not tutorials etc. So. Why not make documentation understable and applicable? And those out of date vids? With strings? They should rebuild it! With their money, they can afford it.

phil.o 5-May-20 18:49pm

Thanks for your vote.
I learnt basic in the early eighties from the language guide of my computer, a Texas Intruments TI99-4A. This guide was only describing formal grammar and syntax, with a few examples, but was nowhere near an exhaustive recipe about any requirement that a human being could even think of. I bought specialized press to get more detailed examples of what can be done and how.
The older guy you are talking about may suffer from the "It was way better before" syndrom.
I don't get what you mean by "these videos", "with strings". Which videos? What strings?
I would also add that the language is not the only thing to study: generic algorithmic, data structures, diagrams, are also quite important to learn, and they are not bound to any specific language.

MadMyche 5-May-20 22:43pm

+5 here as well.
The basic documentation of today is no worse than the book that came with an IBM PC 35 years ago. All it gave you was the command and basic usage of it. It was up to the programmer to string commands and variables together to get the final output.
There really is no way for any language reference to know what combination you have come up with; much less how to change it.
And I will agree that anyone can publish something on how they think things should get done. And a lot of times it is junk.

phil.o 6-May-20 4:38am

Thanks :)

Maciej Los 6-May-20 2:00am

Well explained!

phil.o 6-May-20 4:39am

Thanks :)

BillWoodruff 6-May-20 17:51pm

+5 very articulate reply to a kind of non-question/rant.

phil.o 7-May-20 7:27am

Thanks :)