Using the documentation in ASP.net

[Nibinaear]

I've been learning ASP.net but I'm finding it difficult to find anything I want in the documentation. In php you would simply go to php.net/date to get the date functions up, but ASP.net is completely different.

All I've managed to find so far is this MSDN reference guide, but have I found any reference for the date, or string functions?

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9k6k3k4a.aspx

I've searched it's search engine, and tried google for a separate reference/documentation but to no avail. What do you do when you want to look up a specific function, like, say, the "now" function?

[TheCPUWizard]

While you are in the IDE, simply hitting F1 (assuming you have things setup properly) should bring you right to the appropriate documentation.

You can configure the system to use either a local (fast but fairly big) copy of MSDN, or the on-line version (slower, and obviously requires an active network connection).

Also realize that the ASP.Net documentation per se covers exactly that. It does not (directly) cover the underlying language (which can be any CLR supported language, although it is typically C# or VB.Net).

[Nibinaear]

When you say the IDE, do you mean Microsoft Visual Studio?

Also, this CLR thing is something I'm having trouble getting my head around. If i learn ASP.net, I can just learn ASP.net, such as this tutorial teaches:

http://w3schools.com/aspnet/aspnet_controls.asp

But then people start talking about programming in C# and VB. Do I have to learn these languages in order to know ASP.net?

[TheCPUWizard]

When you say the IDE, do you mean Microsoft Visual Studio?

Also, this CLR thing is something I'm having trouble getting my head around. If i learn ASP.net, I can just learn ASP.net, such as this tutorial teaches:

http://w3schools.com/aspnet/aspnet_controls.asp

But then people start talking about programming in C# and VB. Do I have to learn these languages in order to know ASP.net?

You need to know one of them. ASP.Net is a combintation of HTML, Custom Web Controls, and a Programming Language.

Consider if you create a page with a simple button. When someone clicks the button you want to do something... What language do you think you would program this action in?????? :confused:

[Nibinaear]

You need to know one of them. ASP.Net is a combintation of HTML, Custom Web Controls, and a Programming Language.

Consider if you create a page with a simple button. When someone clicks the button you want to do something... What language do you think you would program this action in?????? :confused:

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. You see, I've been looking at it from a PHP/MySQL perspective. In PHP, you just do PHP, there's no other language to be learned.

I'm actually pretty resentful of this Microsoft approach. I entered Web Development because I didn't want to be a programmer per-se (C++, Java etc, although I can do those langauges). Web Development is known for being a bit easier than strait-programming. Now they've forced me into it anyway!

[Shuja Ali]

It is not that difficult as it seems to be. But remember by introducing C#/VB.NET into web development they have made web development much more flexible and robust. You can do almost any thing in an ASP.NET application.

Look at it from a different perspective.

[Nibinaear]

I think I'm just resentful of this approach because I don't happen to know C# or VB.

When I learnt J2EE and java beans I was connecting JSPs to Java code at the back end and it gave it a load of extra abilities just the same. Sadly by not knowing these languages has given me a lot of extra work to do to learn them.

[TheCPUWizard]

Plus two other things to look at are AJAX and Silverlight. If you integrate these with your APS.NET application you can create a web based solution that is as powerful and "good looking" as ANY desktop application.

It really is a tradeoff.

Also the amount of C#/VB.Net you need to learn is really just about the same as the amount of PHP you need to know.

If you can declare a variable, write a conditional or looping construct, then you really can use PHP either. In both cases you need to understand what a PostBack is, and what an Event Handler is....

Of course you can develop just simple static HTML........

[Shuja Ali]

If you want to learn ASP.NET then you need to know one of the two programming languages that are given above in the same manner like you use Java for your JSP. :)

[Nibinaear]

Well I know AJAX but not silverlight. It's also good to know that not much difficult programming is needed. Anyway, I think I'm set for learning ASP.net now, thanks for the help.

Nibinaear

[TheCPUWizard]

Good Luck :wave: :wave: