Rob Miles - Begin to Code with C#

Rob Miles

PUBLISHED BY
Microsoft Press
A Division of Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, Washington 98052-6399

Copyright 2016 by Rob Miles.
All rights reserved.

No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015942036
ISBN: 978-1-5093-0115-7

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

First Printing

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Acquisitions and Developmental Editor: Devon Musgrave
Project Editor: John Pierce
Editorial Production: Rob Nance and John Pierce
Technical Reviewer: Lance McCarthy; Technical Review services provided by Content Master, a member of CM Group, Ltd.
Copyeditor: John Pierce
Indexer: Christina Palaia, Emerald Editorial Services
Cover: Twist Creative Seattle

To Mary

I think that programming is the most creative thing you can learn how to do. If you learn to paint, you can make pictures. If you learn the violin, you can make music. But if you learn to program, you can create experiences that are entirely new (and you can make pictures and music too if you want to). Once you have started on the programming path, theres no limit to where you can go. There are always new devices, technologies, and marketplaces where you can use your programming skills.

You can think of this book as your first step on a journey to programming enlightenment. The best journeys are undertaken with a destination in mind, and this one is no different. Id like to describe the destination as usefulness. By the end of this book you wont be the best programmer in the world (unless I retire, of course), but you will have enough skills and knowledge to write properly useful programs. And maybe you can have at least one of your programs available worldwide for download from the Microsoft Store.

However, before we start off, Id like to issue a small word of warning. In the same way that a guide would want to tell you about the lions, tigers, and crocodiles that you might encounter if you went on a safari adventure, I feel that I must let you know that our journey might not be all smooth sailing. Programmers have to learn to think slightly differently about problem solving because a computer just doesnt work the same way that we do. Humans can do complex things rather slowly. Computers can do simple things really quickly. It is the job of the programmer to harness the simple abilities of the machine to solve complicated problems. This is what we are going to learn how to do.

The key to success as a programmer is pretty much the same as for lots of other endeavors. If you want to become a world-renowned violin player, you will have to practice a lot. The same is true for programming. You will have to spend quite a bit of time working on your programs to get code-writing skills. But the good news is that, just as a violin player really enjoys making the instrument sing, making a computer do exactly what you want turns out to be a really satisfying experience. And it gets even more enjoyable when you see other people using programs that you have written and finding them useful and fun to use.