One of the best ways for any developer to grow is by staying up to date on all the current technologies and tools that are available to them. And as well all know, technology advances very fast.
The hardest part for most of us is simply finding the time to learn new things. If you are anything like me, you stick to what you are most familiar with to get a project done and out the door. In the end the client is still happy and your project still gets done, but, you may be missing out on ways you can streamline your work and get projects done even faster and with cleaner code.
So where am I going with this?
Well, for years and years I have developed in VB.net using web forms. I have literally built over 300 sites using ASP.net Web Forms and LINQ to SQL. For quite some time know I had read about MVC and even had a few colleagues demonstrate it to me. While I was impressed I really never took the time to sit down and learn it. After all, it was a different way of thinking and who has time to learn? And let’s be honest, I was just being stubborn and did not want to leave my comfort zone.
Well after months and months of bugging me, a friend finally got me to sit down and take a few courses on MVC, AngularJs, and Web API’s. Needless to say, once I started learning about it I was absolutely blow away and have not looked back since.
The biggest challenge is finding a good resource online to provide great training that would serve as a jump off point for me. I found most of my training at Microsoft Virtual Academy and Plural Sight.
I’ve included links below to the courses that I found useful and hope that they help you as well.
Note; Microsoft Virtual Academy is 100% free. Plural Sign has a minimal monthly fee.
- Introduction to ASP.NET MVC
- Developing ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Applications Jump Start
- Implementing Entity Framework with MVC
Enjoy and Happy Coding!