What to progress on to next?

Question

Hello all, have started to delve into programming and currently almost finished Sams Teach Yourself Visual C# 2008 in 24 Hours since it seemed like a good place start.

Could anyone recommend which would be a good book to progress on to after this as i've looked at 10 or so other books on it but they are all either too advanced so they are asking to do things which you should already know but I havn't learn't in this book or they are pretty similar to this book and I wouldn't be learning anything new.

Obviously I don't want to buy a book to just be doing the same stuff over again but on a different project or unable to complete or understand anything in the book because it assumes i know things I do not, so which would be the best book to progress to next and possibly the one to go onto after that?

Or should I move to Visual C# 2010 (in which case what books should I do in what order) as i'm only doing 2008 since it's something I purchased some years ago and only just got around to finally reading.

I also have the same book for Visual Basic 2008 but got the impression that C# was the better language to learn or should I know worry about becoming a specialised expert in it and try to learn both and/or other languages as well?

Answer 1

I think it is better to determine specific domain now i.e, database programming, web programming, mobile applications, parallelism so try to identify specific areas since you want to move to more advanced stage.

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Regards,
Ahmed Ibrahim
SQL Server Setup Team
My Blog
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Answer 2

In addition to Ahmed's answer:

You should also focus now on concrete problems, thus implement an application you would really use. It's makes learning easier when using real world problems, instead of only academical ones. But I still love the calculator :)

Answer 3

I don't think I can choose anything specific at the moment, few years ago did some VB with a course I was doing only simple stuff but we did a database, some silly game and some data movement betwen websites along with the other little things along the way and I liked it all.

I'm just interested in getting proficcient with all of C# so I can hopefully land a job doing it somewhere whatever it is that they create and then once I have a footing in the industry figure out where it is I want to head with it.

I'm just having a hard time finding something to progress with after this book and would like to be alot better with C# before I start my programming course next year.