The initial ste

ps into any programming language are plagued with a basic disconnect—you understand the words, but not the meaning or context behind them . Normally, this would be cause for a paradox, but programming is a special case.

C# is not really its own language; it's written in English. The discrepancy between recognizing words you use every day and the code in Visual Studio comes from missing context, which is something that has to be learned all over again. You know how to say the words and you know how to spell the words, but what you don't know is where, when, why, and, most importantly, how they make up the syntax of the C# language.

This chapter marks our departure from programming theory and the beginning of our journey into actual coding. There...