A contact of mine recently asked me a question. They wanted to know how to learn web development with ASP.NET Core 2.1 if they know some C++ but aren't yet familiar with the .NET framework. They asked me if I could suggest a possible learning path for them. So I reached out to some of the developers on my team: if someone knows C++, what are a few of the stepping stones to .NET?
One of my teammates suggested the following.
C++ --> C
Although the .NET framework supports many languages, C# is the language most widely used with it. For example, ASP.NET is specifically a framework for building web applications and services in .NET and C#. Learning the basics of programming in C# and how C# differs from C++ is therefore an essential first step.
Web Development
The learner should also then invest time in learning about web development: client-side frameworks, server-side frameworks, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), how JavaScript is used alongside HTML and CSS to build web pages, and related web development concepts together form a layer of knowledge on which to build .NET-specific learnings.
.NET --> ASP.NET --> ASP.NET Core
Having laid this initial foundation of C# and web development basics, it becomes useful to spend time with the .NET framework, as well as the usage particulars of ASP.NET. The latter is a server-side framework that is itself part of the .NET framework and is/was the progenitor of ASP.NET Core. The key thing to keep in mind here is that there are many frameworks and libraries available for .NET, and if you start learning about all of them, it can become overwhelming. So a person just starting out with .NET and wishing to build web apps with that framework should focus on how to use ASP.NET Core but without going too deep into the gritty details of .NET vs ASP.NET for now.
After becoming familiar with the basics of how ASP.NET Core is used to build web applications and after taking tutorials, even simple ones such as Microsoft's "ASP.NET Tutorial - Hello World in 10 minutes", the newcomer to ASP.NET Core should know enough to create a very early map that they can use to determine where to turn to next.
All great journeys start small and somewhere. I hope this helps my contact who asked this question and helps you, too, reader!
Till next time.
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