Part #2

Subject: Why each trainer stick to console based development when my intention is to learn how to make “real” applications?

Hi guys,

Have you taken a training for development recently? If you are an established developer in any technology stack, the most frustrating thing could be the “basics”, you would groan and stir loads in the seat when a junior trainer goes through the concepts, basic commands set etc & would try to make the logic behind the approach

For example, if you want to learn C#, that you could use Web applications or desktop applications, you have a preset mind that wants to develop the applications those a user could interact with visibly. Not something that open a console and shows you few outputs and closes down.

I have asked the same question to many junior trainers during the courses and none was ever able to give me satisfactory answer. During my last attempt to refresh my C# skills I came to a conclusion towards this irritating question and it is simple like this

A console application when you want to print something on the screen, you just write a code snippet like this

static void Main(){

Console.WriteLine(“Hello World”);

}

And if you want to do the same with a Desktop application, the efforts are like this

You design a form (I will not use the real technical terms here, not at this stage)

You will add textboxes or labels to show “Hello World” (and you don’t really know how to make them at the first level)

Then you will develop the code part that should show the “Hello World” finally when the application starts

So for a trainer it becomes easy to deal with code part, which is the most important element of an application, rather than trying to teach a student the GUI development.

I will try to explain what I have assumed using real examples

Hellow World console application

[code language=”csharp” gutter=”false”]
using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace HellowWorldConsole

{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Hellow World");
}
}

}
[/code]

Running the application will open a console window and show you the following

Now let us develop the same Hello World application using WPF

My GUI part has the following XAML Code

[code language=”xml” gutter=”false”]
<Window x:Class="HelloWorldWPF.MainWindow"
xmlns="<a href="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"">http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"</a&gt;
xmlns:x="<a href="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"">http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"</a&gt;
Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="525" Loaded="Window_Loaded">
<Grid>
<TextBox x:Name="HWorld" Margin="95,150,117,124"/>
</Grid>

</Window>
[/code]
and the code behind is

[code language=”csharp” gutter=”false”]

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.Threading.Tasks;

using System.Windows;

using System.Windows.Controls;

using System.Windows.Data;

using System.Windows.Documents;

using System.Windows.Input;

using System.Windows.Media;

using System.Windows.Media.Imaging;

using System.Windows.Navigation;

using System.Windows.Shapes;

namespace HelloWorldWPF

{
/// <summary>
/// Interaction logic for MainWindow.xaml
/// </summary>
public partial class MainWindow : Window
{
public MainWindow()
{
InitializeComponent();
}

private void Window_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
this.HWorld.Text = "Hello World";
}
}

}
[/code]

and the output of both portion is seen as below

Now, it’s a common tendency of a seasoned programmer to perfect the GUI, because it creates the initial appeal. As you could see my textbox and the text appearing is not in sync, the height of the textbox is much bigger than the text that it looks somewhat mismatch…the time spent to perfect the GUI could become a real hurdle to progress with the training which must be limited certain hours per course!

Instead the trainers would approach the course, trying to teach the student the maximum coding part, then once the students are familiar with the technology, letting them explore the GUI development (Unless the course has the GUI development exclusively listed under the curriculum)

Once the above idea settled within me comfortably, I managed to sit patiently and learn the “basics” better than ever & was able to map what I learned to GUI much easily. Interested? However, my approach with this series will be developing GUI elements along with the basic coding. Do you have a different approach? do let me know through comments.

with the 1st part of this series I have posted a complete WPF solution to demonstrate what C# with WPF could do. That solution has many issues, like I am not handling folder/file access permissions or threading which is a must requirement when a program is going to run for unprecedented periods.

Be with me and we will be looking at much of them in coming parts.

regards,

rajesh