ASP.NET Continuous learning

Question

I've been working in ASP.NET for several years now (since the 1.0 days!), but I've never been formally instructed. I'm fully capable of doing pretty much anything I want and I've built several production-level, data-driven sites, including one that does over a million in sales a year (according to the owner). But I'm starting to get the feeling that the holes in my knowlege are dragging my productivity down. I read a lot and try to learn wherever I can to try to stay up with all the new technologies, but sometimes I just don't get it, and I think it's because of my lack of formal training.

Does anyone have any ideas on the best way to fill in these gaps without having to rehash the fundamentals?

Thanks

Answer 1

Seek out people better than you and learn from them.

Take some classes or join a user group.

Answer 2

I'm in the same boat; been a .Net developer for 6 years. While I do have a CS degree, I don't have any formal training in ASP.Net; I learn it on the job as projects come up.

I found the best way to figure out what to learn is to keep your eye on .Net developer blogs. Some I follow:

David Hayden http://www.davidhayden.com/blog.aspx CodingHorror.com (you might be familiar with it ;-) Scott Hanselman http://www.hanselman.com/blog/

Usually from reading their blogs, I pick up on what the latest .Net solutions that are out there and point me in the direction of new tech I should look into further.

Overall though, I can only give you the advice I give junior devs at my company; realize you can't possibly be expected to know everything but always be eager to learn. Good luck!

Answer 3

This is a pretty broad question, and hard to address. I perceive myself in a similar space to you, so I guess I can elaborate on what I've been focusing on to improve as a developer which might be of some help.

I mostly write business and commerce related web apps, and my focus has been on a developing a solid understanding of separation of concerns, domain driven design, and enterprise design patterns.

Some books on general software design which I found revelatory were Code Complete by Steve McConnell and Head First Design Patterns by Freeman & Freeman.

I read SO, Code Better, DDD Step by Step, and a number of other blogs regularly.

Dissect well written code from others, and learn from them. Learn from your peers. If you're in a stifling work environment that doesn't give you the opportunity to grow as a developer, consider looking for a new job.

Learn a new language in a completely different framework - I've been teaching myself Ruby on Rails at home and it has given me an interesting perspective on the ASP.NET work that I do commercially.

Given that you're an ASP.NET web developer, learning MVC.NET will certainly help you to think about front-end development in a new, refreshing way.

Answer 4

1) Read the Code of popular Open Source Projects. There are a few that have some really good practices in place.

I recommend checking out BlogEngine.NET. Also if you're more ambitious, I'd suggest looking at the code for ASP.NET MVC 1.0.

2) Sometimes you need to "get back to the basics" when you've been working with a particular framework since a much earlier version. In this case, it can be really useful to pick up a book that covers some of the newer features.

Here's a good book that shows of some of the new features in C# 3.0:

C# 3.0 Design Patterns

3) It may seem odd, but reading up on other languages/platforms (such as Ruby on Rails) will help you in the way you design your classes and code by taking tips of the good and bad of different platforms and combining them.

4) Read some books on general best practices and development methodologies.

Some of these books I recommend are:

The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World

Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction

Answer 5

If you are looking at conferences, consider finding a local Code Camp. These conferences are often very low key, but have excellent information content. They involve local presenters and attendees so you can build up your contacts and a set of people you can run things past when you need help. In addition, you might want to find (or start) a local .NET group where you can learn together. These can be hard to get off the ground, but when done well can be an excellent source of community learning.

Answer 6

I can absolutely identify. I've been programming since 1997 and really don't have any formal training to speak of. With regards to ASP.NET, everything I've learned has been through open code (Community Server, BlogEngine.NET, the other ASP.NET Starter Kits), books, LearnVisualStudio.net, and constantly being thrown in the fire.

I have a MASSIVE inferiority complex as I'm always wondering "did I do this the smart way or the inexperienced way". All I know is that my customers are happy, the errors that occur are few and are fixed quickly, and I keep getting work.

Luckily I have a passion for my work and that's what drives me to keep improving (slow though it may be).

If you're a "people person" then I think user group meetings are a great resource. I'm a bit of an introvert and unless someone who's smart reaches across and shakes my hand, I pretty much rely on the speaker's presentation to teach me something new. Probably not the best way to go and also probably why I don't go that much.

But again, I would stress the open projects, especially Community Server.

Answer 7

Look for interesting ways to break your established patters - even at a loss of productivity.

Otherwise, it sounds like you are already in a pretty good spot. You can deliver on current requirements and sound like you can pick up new tricks when needed.

Really, the best way to learn new techniques is to work on a different project - even if that means changing jobs. If you have relevant and continuous experience since 2001, you should be able to pick your projects.

I've been coding PHP on a current project and it's been an interesting break from webforms. If anything, I'm getting good perspective on both models and really looking forward to doing some work in MVC.

Answer 8

I'll probably get some -1's for this, but as a fellow ASP.NET developer I don't think you really need to learn ALL that the framework has to offer. The reason I say that is that over the years my LACK of knowledge of all the cute little conveniences of ASP.NET has caused me to write better performing and more robust web apps for Windows. Balanced design patterns (separation of concerns) WITHOUT OVERDOING IT will make more of a "better" ASP.NET web app than using all of the controls and tools that come with the framework.

Case in point is the ajax stuff you get with ASP.NET, and also data binding. Since ASP.NET was late in the game with Ajax, I started off with my own ajax wrapper (based on an early ajax book) and then moving to jQuery. My co-workers all swear by the UpdatePanels and 3rd party controls, and quite often the user experience ends up worse and more confusing than a regular post back (and then we have to inject javascript to make it perform better and more seemlessly). As far as data binding, I've yet to find a canned control (from Microsoft or any 3rd party) that handles 2-way binding better than the framework Rick Strahl came up with back in the 1.1 days. We built a framework on top of a paper and some base classes he released, and I've yet to see something that I think handles data binding any better in ASP.NET (well...besides WPF/Silverlight...those frameworks really nailed it IMO).

So, to me, the path to upgrading your ASP.NET skills is to come up with some good ways to separate your business logic into logical components in the cleanest possible way, and learn the hell out of C# and JavaScript (and/or a JS wrapper library like jQuery). For me, coming from a LAMP background before learning ASP.NET, I absolutely love C# and Visual Studio, but I'm not such a huge fan of the high level ASP.NET controls.

Answer 9

If you can afford the money and time (or can get your company to pay for it), take a course at DevelopMentor. They have courses across the country and all year round. They are generally a week long and are in depth.