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That is certainly a mouthful.

Why should you care about C#?

From the viewpoint of students in this course, here is some of what C# really is and why you should care about C#.

Complex IDE

To begin with, C# was designed to run in a large complex IDE. For example, using the Visual C# IDE to create the simple Hello World console program shown in Listing 1 generates about thirteen different files in about ten different folders.

Listing 1 . Hello World in C#.

using System; using System.Collections.Generic;using System.Linq; using System.Text;namespace Hello01{ class Hello01{static void Main(string[] args){Console.WriteLine("Hello C# World"); //Press any key to dismiss console screen.Console.ReadKey(); }//end Main}//end class }//end namespace

Is there a simpler way?

While is it possible to develop simple C# programs outside the IDE (see Baldwin's C# programming tutorials ), there are probably less than a few hundred people worldwide who do it that way.

The transition from the relatively simple IDE used in the prerequisite course to the very complex Visual C# IDE may be a stretch for some students.

Fully object oriented

C# is an object-oriented programming language. Unlike C++, it is not possible to develop C# projects without taking the object-oriented nature of C# intoaccount.

Perhaps more important, it is not possible to develop XNA programs without using some of the more complex aspects of OOP, such as the overriding of virtualmethods.

Massive and complex documentation package

The object-oriented nature of C# becomes very apparent when attempting to locate something in the massive XNA documentation package. The documentation iswritten from an object-oriented viewpoint. For example, see the documentation for the Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics namespace here and see the documentation for the SpriteBatch class here .

Indirection

C# makes extensive use of indirection. While the indirection scheme used in C# is not as complicated as C++ pointers, for someone new to indirection,understanding the concept can sometimes be a challenging task.

C# is the language of XNA

C# is the programming language of the Microsoft XNA Game Studio. To write XNA programs, you must know how to write C# programs.

That is why you should care about C#. I won't try to turn you into a C# programming expert in this course. We have other courses at the college thatconcentrate solely on C# programming. Instead, I will simply try to help you learn enough about C# programming that you can do a credible job of writing programsusing the XNA Game Studio.

Run the program

Click here to download a zip file containing my version of the program. Extract the folder named ConsoleApplication1 from the zip file and save it somewhere on your disk. Start Visual C# 2010 Express and select Open Project... from the File menu. Navigate to the project folder and select the file with the extension of .sln . This should cause the project to open and be ready to run or debug as describedin the earlier module titled Getting Started .

Miscellaneous

This section contains a variety of miscellaneous information.

Housekeeping material
  • Module name: Xna0102-What is C# and Why Should You Care
  • File: Xna0102.htm
  • Published: 02/24/14
Disclaimers:

Financial : Although the Connexions site makes it possible for you to download a PDF file for thismodule at no charge, and also makes it possible for you to purchase a pre-printed version of the PDF file, you should beaware that some of the HTML elements in this module may not translate well into PDF.

I also want you to know that, I receive no financial compensation from the Connexions website even if you purchase the PDF version of the module.

In the past, unknown individuals have copied my modules from cnx.org, converted them to Kindle books, and placed them for sale on Amazon.com showing me as the author. Ineither receive compensation for those sales nor do I know who does receive compensation. If you purchase such a book, please beaware that it is a copy of a module that is freely available on cnx.org and that it was made and published withoutmy prior knowledge.

Affiliation : I am a professor of Computer Information Technology at Austin Community College in Austin, TX.

-end-

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Source:  OpenStax, Xna game studio. OpenStax CNX. Feb 28, 2014 Download for free at https://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11634/1.6
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