What do you consider to be the current benchmark for ASP.Net skills?

Question

I have a friend who works at a job that has no planned upgrade plan on getting off of VS2005 and Sql Server 2000. He's concerned that his skills may fall behind even though he attends user group meetings and tries to cover various topics on his personal time. After talking with him, it got me interested in what people may think the "current" benchmark for the skills a developer should have out in the field to some degree.

My thoughts:

• .Net 3.5 features (Linq, Linq-to-sql, EF, Lambdas, etc.)
• ASP.Net MVC
• Agile Practices
• Test Driven Development or at least just the ability to do unit tests and mocking.
• S.O.L.I.D. Principles.
• jQuery (or similar framework)
• CSS
• Web standards for cross browser compatibility
• SSIS

I'm sure there's others; however, am curious to hear what others think on what would be recommended for a developer to learn.

Answer 1

Page lifecycle, order of events.

A solid understanding of what's good and bad about AJAX. when to use it, when to avoid it.

Answer 2

Whatever you mentioned are correct, I would like to add following two things in the list.

• AJAX (Not ASP.Net AJAX)
• Security

Answer 3

The ability to write clean, testable code that is easily extensible, but not over engineered and a passion for their job and for progressing their skill levels.

In practice, this would include a solid understanding of TDD and enough humility to realize that they still have a lot to learn.

When I am interviewing someone, I am less concerned about the technology they know (this can always be learnt) as the attitude they bring to the interview. Where I work, we do pair programming as part of the interview process and I want to see someone who can adapt, picks up new ideas easily and can then move beyond those ideas.

Being involved in open source projects also helps.

Answer 4

We're currently in the process of hiring a .net developer and although there is some benefit to having experience of some parts of the 3/3.5 framework, I certainly don't consider it a requirement.

I look for people who have shown interest in keeping up to date with trends (For example I would hesitate about someone who claimed to be a .net developer and has never heard of Linq or EF), but they don't necessarily have to be actively using the latest framework features. I totally understand that even .net 3.0 is only 18 months old and many companies take much longer than this to move to new technology.

Answer 5

See Scott Hanselman's What Great .NET Developers Ought To Know (there's an ASP.NET section too)

Answer 6

I find the programmer Competency matrix found http://www.starling-software.com/employment/programmer-competency-matrix.html to be a good guide. Rather than focusing on a specific technology it discusses general skills that are necessary for a good developer.