C# Noob Questions...

[grimsark]

As I am shifting to C#, from this topic, I wanted to start this new one for C#.

If I have annoyed anyone that was assisting me in the Java topic I apologize.

So here we go.

The king is dead! Long live the king!

[grimsark]

I just want to say, for my first official C# comment...

Intellisense (autocomplete) in Visual Studio is AMAZING. It is soooo much better then Eclipse.

Just wow.

[Fog]

Is it really? I sort of assumed that the big Java IDEs would have cloned it. I agree, it's really useful -- I strongly prefer the little popup list to the common and simpler alternative of having tab-completion that just cycles through all the possibilities.

If I had to name one feature from Visual Studio that I wish I had in Emacs it would be the Intellisense popup. Second place would be this extension that provides a minimap sidebar:

[grimsark]

Originally Posted by Fog

Is it really? I sort of assumed that the big Java IDEs would have cloned it. I agree, it's really useful -- I strongly prefer the little popup list to the common and simpler alternative of having tab-completion that just cycles through all the possibilities.

Eclipse has cloned it. But (to my eyes) only about 60%. VS is 300% more context sensitive. It seems to know exactly what I want to put in three out of four times. I think it has to do with the standardization of object templates in VS.

Edit: I will say though that its auto formatting is taking some getting used too.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by grimsark

Eclipse has cloned it. But (to my eyes) only about 60%. VS is 300% more context sensitive. It seems to know exactly what I want to put in three out of four times. I think it has to do with the standardization of object templates in VS.

Edit: I will say though that its auto formatting is taking some getting used too.

You can customize the auto-formatting for stuff like spacing and brace styles in the options, of course.

[grimsark]

Seeing all the VS2010 mods I am getting it installed now. See if I can do what I am told in 2008 with 2010 without to many issues.

edit: I should sooo be in bed right now... I am going to hate myself tomorrow.

[grimsark]

I cant get the StructureAdornment extension to install. I cant search for it in the embeded extension search, nor install from the DL file. maybe Express does not support extensions?

edit: Seems not. Oh well. Its still better then 2008 and has all the same buttons (plus some) so I will use it to practice from the get go. Time for bed.

[Tuco]

VisualAssist makes the intellisense even better. It's designed for C++ (which has worse intellisense than C# in visual studio), and I heard there's better products JUST for C# than visualassist.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by grimsark

I cant get the StructureAdornment extension to install. I cant search for it in the embeded extension search, nor install from the DL file. maybe Express does not support extensions?

edit: Seems not. Oh well. Its still better then 2008 and has all the same buttons (plus some) so I will use it to practice from the get go. Time for bed.

Wow, that's lame. Welcome to Microsoft-world -- not exactly a culture of free tools.

[Vinen]

Originally Posted by Tuco

VisualAssist makes the intellisense even better. It's designed for C++ (which has worse intellisense than C# in visual studio), and I heard there's better products JUST for C# than visualassist.

ReSharper?

ReSharper:: The Most Intelligent Extension for Visual Studio - C# 4.0, VB10, LINQ, VB.NET, ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, XML, XAML, build scripts. Best-of-breed tools for code quality analysis, code cleanup, navigation, code generation, and unit testing, plu

I personally use none of these tools as I find the default tools which are shipped with my installation of VS2010 Ultimate to be sufficient.

[Tuco]

Yeah I've heard ReSharper is good too, but I've never used it. I know visual assist is good enough that it's annoying when I use machines that don't have it. Some mods only seem useful when you've used them for a while.

[Vinen]

Originally Posted by Tuco

Yeah I've heard ReSharper is good too, but I've never used it. I know visual assist is good enough that it's annoying when I use machines that don't have it. Some mods only seem useful when you've used them for a while.

I used it at my previous job. It was nice for reformatting shit code that my predecessors had wrote and bogging down the VM I was coding on. You need a pretty beefy machine to handle it. (IE: Don't do what my company did, VM hosted on an underpowered laptop).

[grimsark]

Originally Posted by Fog

Wow, that's lame. Welcome to Microsoft-world -- not exactly a culture of free tools.

Apparently it only disables 3rd party extensions. You can install any of the official ones listed in the embedded extension search. But I am not surprised. They have to have some incentive to buy. I just wish it wasn't 500 bucks. I may end up dropping about 200 for Photoshop 5.5 upgrade (from CS3). Adding 500 for an IDE just to get extensions and support for deep windows classes doesn't seem worth it at the moment.

I looked into ReSharper and its very similar to what Eclipse has built in. But more advanced. The quick refactoring looks very nice. I wish I could use this thing.

[Zuuljin]

To be honest I wouldn't worry about plugins. I'm with Vinen in that I don't use any tools at my job, and I feel the basics that come with VS are enough. Everything else is just gravy.

Just don't start downloading so much stuff that you become dependent on the plugins/tools, because once something doesn't work as advertised (or you have to use a different tool) you'll be screwed.

Edit: My own bias here: Watching that video above of re-sharper honestly scares me, because it reminds me of the type of people that would program at my College when I was a TA. They would basically program through failure. They just write nonsense that doesn't compile, look at what the IDE is complaining about, right click to fix it, and repeat until the code compiles. Start them on a new project and they do the same thing. Remove the IDE and they have no clue what to do.

You don't really learn through hand-holding; you learn by screwing up and understanding what you did wrong, and then realizing how not to screw up again.

[grimsark]

Originally Posted by Zuuljin

To be honest I wouldn't worry about plugins. I'm with Vinen in that I don't use any tools at my job, and I feel the basics that come with VS are enough. Everything else is just gravy.

Just don't start downloading so much stuff that you become dependent on the plugins/tools, because once something doesn't work as advertised (or you have to use a different tool) you'll be screwed.

Edit: My own bias here: Watching that video above of re-sharper honestly scares me, because it reminds me of the type of people that would program at my College when I was a TA. They would basically program through failure. They just write nonsense that doesn't compile, look at what the IDE is complaining about, right click to fix it, and repeat until the code compiles. Start them on a new project and they do the same thing. Remove the IDE and they have no clue what to do.

You don't really learn through hand-holding; you learn by screwing up and understanding what you did wrong, and then realizing how not to screw up again.

I understand completely. I am a minimalist at heart and am already finding all the auto code generated by XNA to be a bit of an overkill. So I have not installed it in the 2010 yet. I will stare at the 2008 version when I feel like I need to until I don't have too.

As for the ReSharper extension, I agree that if you are using it to code my mistake then you fail... But personally, the similar feedback built into Eclipse only helped me understand things better, until I no longer needed the prompts at all unless there was a genuine mistake.

In the end, I look at it as a measure of productivity. If it makes my job of converting concept to code, easier, then I will use it.

I figure I will stick with Express edition till I get my legs. Then I will buy a professional version. Maybe grab an academic edition for the discount.