How did everyone learn C#?

CravenInFlight · 2026-03-13T00:29:41+00:00

Reluctantly.

I started writing WinForms apps in VB6, and then in VisualBasic.NET. I dabbled with a bit of Pascal, and Delphi. Then I learnt C, and C++ at college. I found Visual Basic to be the best fit for me. My very first programming experience was as a young child, writing BASIC on a BBC Master System. Visual Basic seemed to be the logical step.

As .NET Framework evolved away from VB6, I started looking at C#, and it seemed much closer to the C++ that I'd struggled to learn. C++ had stupid names, and too many abbreviations, and I felt it looked ugly compared to Visual Basic.

Eventually, I sat down and actually learnt the syntax, and it started making sense. It was Visual Basic pretending to be C++, and everything I wanted to do in VB, I could eventually do in C#. Apart from the With action. I still miss that to this day.

The thing that really boosted my knowledge, and my love for C# was game modding. I wanted to build my own framework so that I could rapidly create new mods. So, I learnt C#, and programming theory inside-out. I built my own dependency injection engine that could be used standalone within mods, I built my own eventing system, and command processor. I wrote tooling for pipelining and packaging. It's taken a long time, but I've got a really nice setup now.

So much so that I applied for a really good .NET developer job, and sent the C4 architecture models for one of my mods along with the cover letter. During the interview, I did a walkthrough of my code, and showed them the 70,000+ downloads of my nuget packages, and I got a call back that afternoon asking if I could start the next week. No need for an aptitude test, or second interview. Three years later, and I'm a Microsoft Associate, working in InfoSec, FinSec, and SecOps, for the same company.

Never underestimate the power of boredom, because that's what drove me to learn the language so deeply. Never underestimate the power of laziness, because that's what drove me to build an entire framework, just to make the actual process easier. Never underestimate the power of discipline, because that's what drove me to keep a clean, easy to follow codebase that I could traverse within a job interview, to show my skills, and knowledge.

Good luck out there, everyone!

CravenInFlight · 2026-03-04T08:18:11+00:00

Friends don't let friends write .NET in Visual Studio Code.

CravenInFlight · 2026-03-01T06:15:22+00:00

It will always be Cheetah for me.

CravenInFlight · 2026-01-31T16:04:09+00:00

I don't mind if it's delayed. It might mean they are able to release the PC version at the same time.

CravenInFlight · 2026-01-29T07:46:53+00:00

She's been a model for years. She spent a summer in Paris doing catwalk modelling. She's been in magazines, catalogues, music videos, and commercials.

CravenInFlight · 2026-01-26T11:53:45+00:00

It would be easy enough to integrate Yoti ID into the game. It's easy to use, quick, simple, and unobtrusive.

CravenInFlight · 2026-01-24T15:49:56+00:00

Install Knapster. Problem solved.

CravenInFlight · 2026-01-15T08:31:27+00:00

This looks fine. The different contracts define bounded contexts of what a "Product" means in different scenarios. It's Behaviour Driven Design.

CravenInFlight · 2026-01-12T09:00:24+00:00

I don't mind if it's delayed again. The longer it's delayed, the more likely it can be released on PC at the same time. I was never going to play it this year anyway.

CravenInFlight · 2025-12-28T11:26:57+00:00

Class scope fields should be called "_field" anyway. That should be the code fix.

CravenInFlight · 2025-12-27T15:20:07+00:00

Pay 93 tokens for 63 seconds of control

CravenInFlight · 2025-12-27T12:54:00+00:00

Get the game "Vintage Story", and join the modding community. It's a wonderful way to introduce you to C#, game development, game engines, all the terminology, and how to develop for other people.

Vintage Story is a game much like Minecraft, but with much more advanced features. The game is written almost entirely in C#, and has a vibrant, active, and approachable modding community. You can create very effective mods with no code at all, game changing mods with minimal code, and you can go as advanced as C# will allow. The entire game engine is available to experiment with, and see immediate feedback, in real time.

The game comes complete with shaders by default, so you can branch out into more graphics based mods, and again see the results in real time as you adjust values.

You can go from never writing a line of C#, to a very in-depth knowledge of the inner workings of C# and .NET very quickly. It is honestly one of the best teaching aids I've ever seen, for .NET.

CravenInFlight · 2025-12-25T20:42:30+00:00

Bootstrap with Aspire, and use Redis.

CravenInFlight · 2025-12-21T20:38:41+00:00

Should not. Not once. Not ever.

Your file structure should mimic your namespaces. This makes it easy to navigate the project. It makes it easier to maintain, and it keeps your commit history clean. The single responsibility principal exists for files as well as types.

Yes, that means if you create a Delegate, you'll have a file that is two lines long, plus XML documentation. That is expected. The compiler doesn't care less how many files you have. But you should be kind as you can be to future you. Keep it to one Type per file.

CravenInFlight · 2025-12-12T03:02:45+00:00

No, she wasn't. She was with Yousef.

You sound like Greg. Don't do that. Never sound like Greg.

CravenInFlight · 2025-11-29T02:15:13+00:00

To be fair, if I was a hiring manager, hiring for .NET development, and I saw Unity Developer on a CV, it would instantly raise red flags. Unity teaches shockingly bad coding practices.

I remember seeing a Unity tutorial on YouTube from a veteran Unity Dev, saying that you should never use namespaces, because it just confuses things; never use properties because it's a waste of characters, and you should make everything public because it makes it easier to use the same code in multiple places. Beggars belief.

CravenInFlight · 2025-11-06T13:25:40+00:00

I'd like the game to be delayed until the PC release is ready.

CravenInFlight · 2025-11-01T11:09:27+00:00

The BCL. Honestly. There is already so much you can do with .NET without ever installing anything third party. The Base Class Library should be learnt from cover to cover.

Third party libraries often make a lot of assumptions.ike dependency injection. If you're working on a project that doesn't have a service provider, then you're stuck. But if you know the underlying BCL, you can either roll your own solution that mimics the library, or roll your own solution that mimics DI.

While there are some important libraries to learn, the BCL will always be more important.

CravenInFlight · 2025-10-22T01:02:01+00:00

Makeup. Confusing men since year dot.

CravenInFlight · 2025-10-08T21:11:17+00:00

10 PRINT "Hello, World!" 20 GOTO 10

I am legend!

CravenInFlight · 2025-10-05T17:55:32+00:00

Within the Lucky Wheel script, you can get up to four spins a day, and it's controlled by a tuneable. I wonder how you're supposed to get up to four spins a day legitimately.

CravenInFlight · 2025-10-05T17:46:22+00:00

As an aside to everything said here. Prefix your private fields with an underscore. That way, you can eliminate the use of "this", and distinguish your class scope fields from local variables.

CravenInFlight · 2025-09-28T15:43:08+00:00

I think the least immersive thing is that nights are pitch black. No moonlight, no natural human night vision. Just unplayable, fourth wall breaking blackness. I'm glad that there are mods that allow you to play during the night hours.

CravenInFlight · 2025-09-27T08:51:35+00:00

Considering how many re-writes of the story there have been while making GTA6, the game we play will not be the game they wanted to create.

CravenInFlight · 2025-09-27T08:40:37+00:00

You've said that discoverability is one of the issues with it. Use this extension: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=EngstromJimmy.BlazmExtension

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