Note : I am reblogging this post which originally was [posted to the LearningLine blog [defunct link: http://blog.learninglineapp.com/2013/05/06/what-should-i-learn-to-get-started-in-net-and-web-development/]. Hope you all find it useful here as well]
I recently had a conversation with someone who is looking to make a fresh start and become a developer (coming from other IT positions). The question they had was:
What should I learn to get started in .NET and web development?
Now this question was starting from a position of “I’d like to get started with .NET and the web. How do I do that?” So please hold your “No, choose Ruby (or NodeJS or … )” comments. That’s another blog post. :)
Here’s my advice along with a bunch of courses you can use to accomplish this efficiently and affordably.
To go from “zero to web dev in .NET” I think you should start on these topics, in an iterative fashion:
- Fundamentals of C# (skip the advanced stuff – async, yield return, etc for now)
- Basic objected-oriented programming in C# (what is a class, what is inheritance not patterns per say)
- Fundamentals of ASP.NET and MVC (controllers, views, razor, a few things like that)
- LINQ (simple focus on LINQ to objects)
- JavaScript fundamentals (assuming that’s new to you)
- jQuery basics
- The ins-and-outs of user input in MVC (including security).
- Entity framework basics.
Now if you’d like some advice on where to get this training, check out our content on LearningLine.
Here are the related LearningLine courses from DevelopMentor which will walk you through this path. Because you can preview the first lesson of each course, you have about 7 hours free and the rest are all included in an affordable $29 subscription.
Getting started with C# [defunct link: https://learninglineapp.com/courses/1/getting-started-with-csharp]
Designing maintainable code with C# [defunct link: https://learninglineapp.com/courses/6/design-maintainable-code-with-csharp]
Getting started with ASP.NET MVC [defunct link: https://learninglineapp.com/courses/10/getting-started-with-aspnet-mvc]
Intro to data access in C# [defunct link: https://learninglineapp.com/courses/7/introduction-to-data-access-in-csharp]
Getting started with JavaScript [defunct link: https://learninglineapp.com/courses/32/getting-started-with-javascript]
Essential jQuery [defunct link: https://learninglineapp.com/courses/17/essential-jquery]
Accepting user input in MVC [defunct link: https://learninglineapp.com/courses/11/accepting-user-input-in-aspnet-mvc]
Getting started with Entity Framework [defunct link: https://learninglineapp.com/courses/27/getting-started-with-entity-framework]
What’s great about taking these classes on LearningLine is there is zero duplication. If a lesson (task) happens to be shared across courses, you’ll see it already marked as completed for you and you can just skip to the next.
Hope this has help give you some guidance on getting serious about becoming a .NET developer.