How can I become a better C# programmer? [closed]

Question

When you can create classes and do the simple stuff (GUI, reading text files, etc...), where do I go from here? I've started reading Code Complete 2nd Edition which is great but is more of a general programming book. What topics should I learn next?

Answer 1

I'd argue that, at some point, it's no longer about topics. It's about doing stuff. You gotta write code an you've gotta write a lot of it.

People will often tell you to find some niche problem to try and solve when learning a new language and that's perfectly fine, but if there's an application or feature of an application that you really enjoy using or really admire, attempt to build it (or parts of it) yourself. Even more so, if you find your self wondering Hey, how does [this application] do that?! Try to build it.

Many of your projects may never see the light of day beyond your desktop, but the learning, experience, and tools you'll have under your belt will be something that you can carry over to each subsequent project.

You never know, though, one of those little hobby projects may end up solving a problem for someone.

Answer 2

Not to disagree with the folks who are saying "write stuff," but one topic that you should learn about next is the underlying fundamentals of the CLR -- the workings of the engine that sits behind all of these libraries. A good resource for this is Richter's "CLR Via C#."

Answer 3

Write a desktop RSS reader. You'll get exposure to a bunch of different areas (parsing files, graphical apps, HTTP, the flakiness of the internet), and you might actually use the result on a daily basis. Picking a specific goal or feature to work towards will help you learn more quickly than something abstract.

Answer 4

I agree with most of the answers so far, but I think that if you want to improve as a developer you can benefit greatly by not running solo. Try to find someone who can coach you. Over the years I've made my greatest leeps in depth of understanding by teaming up with programmers who were smarter and more experienced than I was. (They still are :-) )

Answer 5

Learn another language and apply the learned knowledge to C#.

F#, Scala, Haskell - lots to pick :)

Answer 6

Get ReSharper, keep all recommendations enabled and understand them.

Answer 7

Learn best practices and software engineering and how to apply them to C#.

Learn Version Control, TDD, Domain Driven Development, Continuous Integration, MVC, MVP, A handful of patterns: facade, factory, repository vs. active record, etc.

Learn tools that will help you avoid reinventing the wheel: Validation Application Block, NHibernate, etc.

I found this free e-book from the guys at CodeBetter a few days ago: link text

I haven't read all of it but it looks like a good read.

Answer 8

Try reading the Mono source code to get a look at how a C# compiler written in C# looks. You'll learn so much about the language, compilers, and computer architecture. This is the great benefit of a project with source - you can learn from it.

Answer 9

Write code, lots of it. And not those fluffy little HelloWorld-type programs.

Find either a real project that interests you or something you've already written that can be converted to C# and do that. Only by doing (and, unfortunately, making copious mistakes) do we learn.

Answer 10

practice, look at open source projects, understand completely what it does and how it does it, especially complex libraries like mocking frameworks, ORM, etc

Answer 11

Visit CodePlex.com and GitHub.com and look for open source projects which you can contribute towards.

Answer 12

looking at q/a of stackoverflow, c# topic. :-D

Answer 13

Also a good way is to get involved in a small project with multiple members (friends maybe), so you can learn from each other and see how other people do their stuff.

Answer 14

• Read code
• Write code
• Test code
• Read books (some suggestions), blogs etc.
• Repeat

Answer 15

write good unit tests and try to get the code coverage as high as possible

Answer 16

Write code yourself, and read the code that has been written be someone else. But, not anyone else; of a person of whom you're sure that he writes good, clean, smart code.

Answer 17

• Work in a team with better programmers - get employed
• Work on large open source projects.

I disagree with most people here that learning by building stuff just by yourself is the best way.

Answer 18

The best way to learn is to actually get stuck in and build some cool apps, websites, whatever. Its still a good idea to keep up with the various websites to learn new stuff that you might not have come across though.

Maybe build the next facebook or google :)

Answer 19

If you want to become a better C# (replace with any other language), work on large scale applications, the kind that has certain features on 'musts' in it that you know you have no clue how to realize them, yet. All the easy ones around these core 'nuts-to-crack' will help you, too.. it's always good to get used to thinking in large, interwoven dependencies in projects which force you to think through and layout the architecture of your final product upfront.

This isn't particularly c# related, but if you want to become a better developer, these kind of projects (that implicitly include lots of ((c)lean) coding and testing etc etc) are the best learning grounds.

If none of the clients wants to 'give you the chance' to work on such a project with your current skill set just yet, go ahead (or in any case) and start coding on an opensource project and keep friends, colleagues and places like stackoverflow involved.

Be prepared and open to make 'errors' (as you might judge them afterwards)... because only with a gazillion errors made you see the slim/windy path in between them.

That being said, learn to not over-engineer or get tooo perfectionist too early. Bugs will be made, bugs may even remain in a final product considering certain impact conditions etc, learn to live with that as an engineer/developer.

Answer 20

Suggest you read C# in Depth. It is a deep dive into C# that will greatly enhance your understanding of the language. The author, Jon Skeet, is rumored to be a lurker on this site...

Answer 21

With a new language, try to solve some of the Project Euler problems. Improving math and coding at the same time!

Answer 22

CLR via C# a great book !! helped(still helping) me a lot understanding the language also you can download the c# language specification book