New to ASP.NET

Question

I am wanting to learn ASP.Net and am just a beginner. I have done some windows c# forms development before but have no experience of web development.

I have looked at the ASP.net website but beyond this, does anyone have any ideas as to good learning resources particulary in relation to the differences to windows development. For instance, It seems that the way events work is quite different under ASP to windows forms.

Thanks you all.

Thank you very much. I will have a look at MVC. It looks even more complicated but if this is the way things are going then I would be better maybe to invest my learning in this.

Answer 1

ASP.NET website - seriously, it's a really good resource.

Answer 2

I know they are a bit out of date, but I still think the two Fritz Onion books give a great look at what's happening in ASP.NET under the hood.

Answer 3

I would advise you at this stage in ASP.NETs life to instead direct your attention at ASP.NET-MVC. This url http://www.asp.net/mvc/ is a very good resource for learning.

ASP.NET Forms do a good job of hiding the nature of a connection-less HTTP/browser based technology and presenting a familiar Form with controls and lots of useful events environment that Windows Forms developers are used to.

However this approach comes with a price. For any serious project there is no avoiding getting under the hood of ASP.NET forms and properly understanding the underlying technology. At this point you start to realise the significant compromises the ASP.NET Forms has had to make in order to make Windows Forms developers feel at home.

ASP.NET-MVC, on the other, makes no such compromises. Learning MVC means learning how HTTP works up-front. It also has the advantage of being a much more test friendly approach which when used properly will save you days of debugging.

Answer 4

I'd seriously consider starting with ASP.NET MVC. You'll end up learning what you need from ASP.NET "classic" but you'll pick up all the goodness of MVC (testability, seperation of concerns in your code etc) instead of learning bad habits.

Google for "ASP.NET MVC", check out ScottGu's blog, Scott Hanselmans's blog, or search StackOverflow for ASP.NET MVC (use the ASP.NET MVC tag too).

One good place to start...

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/04/01/asp-net-mvc-1-0.aspx

Answer 5

Some resources:

asp.net (as you mentioned)

channel9

scott hanselman's blog (some useful entries)

Windows Client Homepage

W3Schools Tutorials (Useful for more than just .NET, but this is the .NET page)

Answer 6

Try java!...

Answer 7

I've been a .NET Windows Forms (not Web forms) developer for 1 and a half years. Then I switched jobs and started using WebForms for like... 2 years. Then I discovered ASP.NET MVC (January 2008) and since then although I still master ASP.NET WebForms I will always prefer ASP.NET MVC.

My recommendation also goes into ASP.NET MVC. You will have to learn HTTP, HTML and a bit of Javascript but after these you will master web development on ALL PLATFORMS.