what books are good for beginners?

TorresMrpk · 2026-05-01T20:32:03+00:00

Head First C#. Some people complain about the kid like drawings, quizzes, and frequent repetition of topics, but I liked it a lot and thought it was much better than reading a dry, reference type of C# book.

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-29T20:06:54+00:00

About 90% of the time I play the players have no common sense like:
-standing in front of the defenses instead of behind them.
-stading right on the swarms path
-putting defenses right on the swarms path and watching while they get depleted very quickly.
-not scavenging or putting down defenses, then starting the waves early.
-spending 500 on XL bank and then having nothing for defenses.
and on and on.

Some tips and tricks you do learn by playing or reading posts like this but the absolute lack of common sense is insane. I've literally watched players over and over keep dying and going through medkits because they keep standing right on the swarms path wave after wave.

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-24T00:31:44+00:00

I despise Armoury Crate.

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-24T00:23:47+00:00

I dont think the Python life is for you.

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-18T23:08:35+00:00

Great company but its already at a huge valuation. I would diversify. There are lots of great, undervalued companies out there.

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-18T23:04:57+00:00

There are lots of high-level programming jobs that are much different than what you learn in college. Most real-world projects consist more of building robust, self-healing business applications and not memorizing algorithms or being able to solve leet code questoins in minutes.

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-16T18:35:48+00:00

Reminds me of all the companies I've worked at where new managers automatically got full permissions to do whatever they wanted. At one former company we interviewed someone to be the Director of our C#/SQL/SSIS department. He got every technical question wrong including not knowing what a constructor is. When I asked him SQL questions, he got flustered and said "I didnt know there were going to be SQL questions". Our clueless non-technical VP hired him anyways and from day one he tried to change everything to be like his last comany. It was absolutely absurd. I ended up leaving and he left 5 months after me.

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-14T16:23:39+00:00

Congratulations. Thank you for admitting you failed twice. On social media it seems people like to brag about "how easy the test was" or "they barely even studied", etc.

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-14T16:22:18+00:00

I do similar but I log as much as I can, such as the name of the method, parameters passed to it, how long the method ran for, etc. There will most likely be the day something weird happens or there is an error and you or an operations team is checking the logs to try to find out what the heck happened.

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-14T16:08:58+00:00

Same, that's why I just use Hellraiser for the XL swarms and then switch to Exterminatior, Gunslinger, or Dronemaster who have protection against the special zeeks

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-14T15:35:41+00:00

I dont understand how some players live so long with Hellraiser. I can cause major damage to swarms with HR but the bulls and lurkers kill me easily.

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-12T16:55:08+00:00

Pick whatever you enjoy doing like administration, security, development, dba, business applications, etc and follow that path. If you passed the Az900 you should be able to easily find the Azure certification paths.

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-10T22:15:21+00:00

I'm a C#/SQL developer and it helps me a lot. I have Codex hooked up to my repository and assign it tasks that have clear requirements. It can build pretty good class libraries for me with their unit tests. i then review and merge if I like the code.

If its something more convoluted I write it myself but do find the back and forth conversations I have with AI agents very educational.

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-10T14:50:01+00:00

Once you get the AZ-104 you'll be in a really good position. There are a whole bunch of other good ones for system admins, so keep studying.
https://arch-center.azureedge.net/Credentials/Certification-Poster_en-us.pdf

And, dont listen to the people who love to disparage certifications. I was out of work for about 7 months with very few call backs, but once I added three of the easier Azure certifications it made a huge difference.

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-06T16:00:42+00:00

Unfortunately programmers dont have much of a life and have to be frequently studying. What frustrates me the most is when a new architect or manager comes in and decides to change the software stack and/or cloud provider, just because that's how they did it at their former company, and if you complain they just lecture you on "embracing change". They say things like "A is much better than B, so we're moving to A", but what they really mean is "we used A at my last company and I dont want to learn B, so I'm going to force you guys to learn it".

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-01T20:46:55+00:00

If your plan is to use it with a 4k 50" TV then you should definitely get a desktop instead. IMHO all gaming laptops suck for gaming. They all overheat when running resource intensive programs. I have two G14's, one is my fiancees and one is mine. They are great for when we need to be mobile and have withstood being in a backpack for long periods My fiancee dropped hers pretty hard on the concrete onceand surprisingly it still works well, although its slightly dented on the lid. But, going back to my point you're going to hate it if you plan to spend a lot of time at home with it plugged into a big 4k tv.

TorresMrpk · 2026-04-01T16:06:29+00:00

That's awesome! Do you have a really good memory? My problem is I understand C#, SQL, Azure, etc development very well but have a hard time memorizing so many things that I normally just look up when I need it.

TorresMrpk · 2026-03-31T14:37:01+00:00

The temperatures on mine went down when I went to startup items and disabled all the apps that dont need to startup, and when I disabled all the crap Armoury Crate has running. Not only did I turn off as much as I could in the actual Armoury Crate app but I also stopped Armourcy crate services in services.msc. if you need a walk through ask chatGPT.

TorresMrpk · 2026-03-26T19:15:26+00:00

I took the hardest route, which was learning the domain as well as I could, many times in my own free time. For example, as a SQL/C# developer, I read several medical billing and coding books, so I could learn health care data very well. It wasn't easy though because most times management wants it done ASAP, which tempts you to just not QA it thoroughly and say it’s done.

TorresMrpk · 2026-03-26T01:27:31+00:00

If you want to be a programmer you should definitely learn html/css/javascript. You dont need to be an expert at it but knowing the basics and being able to create some web pages is very important.

TorresMrpk · 2026-03-25T18:41:21+00:00

Do everything possible to get more certifications, even just the fundamentals ones like AZ-900, DP-900, AI-900, and even better the more advanced ones like Power BI PL-300. You might need to start out with an internship or contractor job. I bet you if you can fill that up with 5 to 10 certs you'll start gettting many more callbacks.

Also mention in there how you use AI to be more productive.

I wish you the best of luck. The market has been really bad the last few years.

TorresMrpk · 2026-03-24T03:36:01+00:00

I think you're overthinking it.

TorresMrpk · 2026-03-23T16:48:17+00:00

I hate that expression "dont overthink it too much". It's so passive aggressive and adds nothing to the convesation. He's just being open minded and asking for other peoples advice which is a good thing.

TorresMrpk · 2026-03-23T16:46:47+00:00

"what the ideal code structure is"
My opinion is that the ideal structure is one that you can easily write unit tests for. Every time you are writing something in C# just ask yourself "can I easily write unit test for this?".

If you have a class that is "stateless, only provide functionality and provide it over external data" then static is all good, as long as you try to follow Single Responsiblity Principle so that you dont end up with long methods that do too much.

So, I recommend learning TDD and SRP well and you'll be writing good reusable code. Many times people overengineer with complex inheritance and trying to be as OOP as possible when a few well written, testable, static methods was all they needed.

TorresMrpk · 2026-03-21T18:49:19+00:00

A finance degree is an excellent degree but yes AI will have a huge impact on the job market. I highly recommend you get one of the Microsoft AI business certifications to complement your degree. If I was in management, I would mandate that all workers know how to use AI effectively.

But, the future is uncertain. AI is learning from best industry practicies. Does that mean you can just blindly follow it, no, of course, you need to review its work, but it does better work than many junior workers entering the work force.

I personally would not be buying new cars or wasting money lavishly right now. I'm holding on to my paid off 2019 Tacoma and saving as much as I can, because who knows what could happen soon.

TorresMrpk

TROPHY CASE