Learning From Books

[CVO Chris]

Being unemployed I thought I'd do something useful and learn C# so I went out and brought "Visual C# 2008 Step by Step". I've done little programming before (a bit of actionscript - setting, manipulating and outputting variables is about the height of it).

One of the biggest problems is not having someone round who is able to answer questions. You know if something you notice comes up that the book doesn't deal with and you have no tutor to offer a further explanation on it.

Now I realise many people here would've went to uni and done courses in programming etc but I'm wondering how many people have learned anything solely through a book and practicing. I'm pretty much self taught in Flash but that's been through practice only. Obviously it doesn't have to be programming but any subject. Can you really become competant at something in such a way?

[yasunobu13]

I learned web development on my own (HTML, CSS, flash, PHP, MySQL) and I think that I'm pretty competent at it. I prefer books to web sites for no real reason other than it forces me to do work writing the code in order to learn and there is no temptation to just copy and paste.

[whispers]

Absolutely...

Books are great AFTER you have a foundation to build from..

but I find if you know 0% about a subject that you better identify with that book and totally click with how the author teaches you. Cause when you have questions,...books dont answer back..

IMHO, you need a nice forum where others deal/talk in C3 all day.. immerse yourself... a place that has a nice searchable archive (such as FK's for flash) would be the best starting point.

I also think giving yourself a project goal gives you somethingwork towards..and gives you a direction to go when your feeling unmotivated or forgetful

Good luck.. I think there were some C3 ASP.net tuts made by loydall (was it?) a while back...

may help with some direction and visual feedback..

[CVO Chris]

Thanks whispers; will check that out. I am now on Chapter 7 and have got the hang over it all thus far.

One other thing I notice about books (at least this one) is that you go through an exercise for each topic and then straight on to something else. But it's the next day and although I remember alot of it; I am sure there are a few things I'll forget because I've only done it the once. In college or whereever you do exercises over and over until it's imprinted in your brain! And there's a few mistakes in the syntax in the book :grr:

Oh well; onwards and upwards!

[whispers]

ahh.. yes.. the ever famous syntax errors in books.. I bought one of my first books Friends of Ed: Foundation Flash/PHP whatever.. was terrible...

tons (and TONS) of mistakes.. the editor should have been fired.. the accompanying website was also a joke.. forum was slow to dead... with others posting on same mistakes in book..

usually they have a section on the site for book error updates.. but they were just slackers I think..

[pigpen32]

I'm almost entirely self-taught too, and have been a professional designer/developer for over 10 years. Except for one summer course in college for Photoshop, I learned everything else on my own, mainly through books. I love reading (also have tons of fiction books) so maybe certain people have more of an aptitude for learning through books, while others need classes. I find that a good book lets your know more about a topic than any other way.

Yeah it does suck that books can't answer book, so like others said, a good forum is great, or having good Googling skills. Since you're learning ASP.NET C#, be sure to check out the ASP.NET forums:

http://forums.asp.net/