Perl Programmer Learning C#, Seeking Helpful Resources, Tips

Jim has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Greetings,

I'm a longtime Windows Perl hacker who's now learning C#. I'm hoping to find helpful resources and to get good tips from other experienced Perl programmers who have translated their Perl skills to C# and .NET Framework programming.

I write a lot of basic kinds of scripts that are mostly simple command-line utilities that operate on files—usually plain text files. Occasionally, I work with data in SQL databases. A typical script of mine uses modules like File::Glob, File::Spec, Getopt::Long, Text::CSV_XS, DateTime, DBI, DBD::ODBC, etc. Of course I use object-oriented modules, but the scripts I write are procedural with incidental sprinklings of functional (map, grep, Schwartzian transforms, etc.). I've never written a class myself. I can't imagine programming without hashes (associative arrays or dictionaries). I consider myself pretty darned adept with regular expressions, and I know a lot about Unicode. (I'm an individual member of the Unicode Consortium.) I'm also the company date, time and time zone nerd. I work primarily in the electronic discovery business.

I think the quickest way for me to learn C# and to become productive using it is to write a few simple console applications with it that I would otherwise have written using Perl. So it would be really helpful to find resources that guide a Perl hacker quickly to success with C# and .NET. For example, what does a smart C# programmer use that a smart Perl programmer uses Getopt::Long for? Likewise, what's the C# alternative to Perl's Text::CSV_XS? More generally, how would I craft the same kinds of command-line filters in C# that I'm so accustomed to whipping up quickly and easily in Perl?

I'll learn all the tricky Windows programming stuff (WPF, XAML, etc.) after I've gotten comfortable with the core C# language and the basics of the .NET Framework.

Thank you in advance for your helpful responses. And please: no programming language war in this thread. I have to learn C#, and I promise I won't stop hacking Perl. Fair enough?

Jim

Comment on Perl Programmer Learning C#, Seeking Helpful Resources, Tips

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Re: Perl Programmer Learning C#, Seeking Helpful Resources, Tips by Anonymous Monk on Apr 06, 2014 at 22:00 UTC
Hmm, some time ago I learned about c#sharp by reading the source to http://sourceforge.net/projects/shellify/ ... very similar to java (probably knew that) Searching around now I found these interesting links :) weaker ones first A Perl developer in the world of C# some (weak) discussion of benchmark game http://www.curmudgeonlysoftware.com/2011/03/22/from-c-sharp-to-perl-performance/ C# & Perl \| Dr Dobb's / C# & Perl \| Dr Dobb's The better links are below :) Having looked at the table of contents of C# Programming - Wikibooks, open books for an open world C# Essentials - Techotopia C Sharp Programming Course (aka C# Yellow Book — robmiles.com) they compare well to the table of contents of Modern Perl by chromatic In short, looks like they'll teach you the mechanics of the language :) For example, what does a smart C# programmer use that a smart Perl programmer uses Getopt::Long for? I don't know but there is a getopt from gnu project for c#sharp says http://stackoverflow.com/questions/172443/getopt-library-for-c-sharp Likewise, what's the C# alternative to Perl's Text::CSV_XS? Good question :) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2081418/parsing-csv-files-in-c-sharp says FileHelpers are a free and easy to use .NET library to import/export data from fixed length or delimited records in files, strings or streams. More generally, how would I craft the same kinds of command-line filters in C# that I'm so accustomed to whipping up quickly and easily in Perl? http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/C_Sharp_Programming/The_.NET_Framework/Console_Programming http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9608591/regex-c-sharp-console-app Category:C sharp - Rosetta Code -> http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Rot-13#C.23 So you have reading from STDIN ... checking args ... checking if files exist ... double.TryParse ... Regex regex = new Regex ... MatchCollection matches = regex.Matches(text); That covers everything no? :)	[reply]
Re: Perl Programmer Learning C#, Seeking Helpful Resources, Tips by kcott (Archbishop) on Apr 06, 2014 at 20:30 UTC
G'day Jim, Plugging "`C# Perl`" into my search engine produced many results showing comparisons between the two languages and how code, to perform the same task, could be written in both. "C# and Perl Cross Reference Guide" seemed like a promising start. I'll leave you to research further. -- Ken	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Perl Programmer Learning C#, Seeking Helpful Resources, Tips by Anonymous Monk on Apr 06, 2014 at 21:28 UTC
Which search engine is that? Both DuckDuckGo and Google didn't return that page in first 20 results Prestwood IT: C# and Perl Cross Reference Guide hmm, I skimmed that, some glaring examples nonsense included on perl side, and lots of "Not specified yet. Coming..."	[reply]
Re^3: Perl Programmer Learning C#, Seeking Helpful Resources, Tips by kcott (Archbishop) on Apr 06, 2014 at 21:58 UTC
"Which search engine is that? Both DuckDuckGo and Google didn't return that page in first 20 results" The first one does. Here's the full URL: "https://duckduckgo.com/?q=C%23+Perl&kp=-1&kl=au-en". Perhaps it doesn't appear if your configuration settings generate a different query string. -- Ken	[reply]
Re^4: Perl Programmer Learning C#, Seeking Helpful Resources, Tips by Anonymous Monk on Apr 06, 2014 at 22:07 UTC
Re: Perl Programmer Learning C#, Seeking Helpful Resources, Tips by sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Apr 07, 2014 at 11:51 UTC
The biggest hurdle to overcome when moving your mind-set between the two languages is simply that C# is a fully-compiled and strongly-typed language, whereas Perl is highly dynamic and essentially type-less. Java (not JavaScript) is a fairly good corollary, although there is one other important consideration: C# is designed for use in a Microsoft-centric, dot-Net environment, period. To fully understand C# as in to be truly effective with it, you’ll need to study the environment in which it stands.


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