Reading for a junior ASP.NET C# web developer.

Question

We have a new junior developer and I want him to start reading up on various topics in order to broaden his horizons.

I am trying to group these into "areas" so that he can focus on getting a good general knowledge in on subject before moving on to another one.

So far I have the following areas:

• Asp.net with C#, Webforms
• T-SQL
• CSS

Can you provide good examples of reading material (preferably e-books so I can get them quicker) for him in each of those areas. Other areas and blogs to follow are also welcome.

EDIT: He is kinda learning on the job and we expect our developers to be fairly autonomous (they develop a site from start to finish including any database work, coding, CSS implementation and HTML implementation). So he is getting that sort of training and mentoring already, I was just wondering how to help him expand his knowledge in his own time.

Answer 1

You would be better off learning principles first, instead of concentrating on specific technologies (tech changes often, principles not so often...).

I would suggest looking at the SOLID principles in order to gain some good development practices.

You can find many of them here.

Answer 2

I would go for Total Training ASP.NET, you can try also Learn Visual Studio

Answer 3

When it comes to just the C# part I would recommend "C# in depth" by Jon Skeet. It is a very good way to get a junior to understand the real capabilities of the language and to think in a programmer way rather than a classic ASP.NET way.

Answer 4

I would introduce a junior to a book like this: http://www.sitepoint.com/books/aspnet3/ And then make him get to know design patterns through an easy read like: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596007126

You should probably give him a simple hands on project, though.

Answer 5

I think the most important part of being a developer is to firstly be technology independent in the sense of... If you want to learn asp.net or php, make sure you understand HTML basics and how requests are sent from the browser to the server and so on.

I see a lot of the developers not understanding what they are doing, and it's due to the lack of understanding.

As far as readings go, C# Language Specification, ASP.NET Getting Started.

Ask the developer if he has a pet project, because usually when I learn a new technology, I have a pet project that I just keep on building on top of.