Hello, Awesome C#ers.
I started programming since Covid became pandemic. But I am a slow learner, mostly because of a lack of time. At this very moment, I have developed a basic accounting app and I’m finishing an old ASP.NET Framework course with a code-first approach. Also, I now learn javascript at work when I have free time. And I have done some SQL, enough to be able to use it.
My plan was to hurry through this course and then find something with either updating the project to CORE or just a course that covers CORE, simply for me to know the difference. And then check CORE 5, but dont see that essential yet. As I mentioned I have limited time.
My main goal is to get a job in the UK so I can do this full-time. I love programming, but I feel like I am wasting my time, every time I consider doing something else like codewars.com or working on my own project.
I am asking for some guidance on what should I focus on so that I could prove myself a decent recruit. Some mentoring.
If you are in the situation as me let’s be friends on discord.
What I have found to be great to learn a language is to create a full application to solve something (doesn’t have to be a million dollar idea) just something you do from start to finish because you will learn so much and will encounter problems along the way that will teach you about different technologies. On the plus side when you are done with it you have something to show future employers that show 1) you are passionate about this 2) your skill level.
Another comment on learning many different frameworks, in my experience, when I came out of college I focused on learning many frameworks and different languages to make sure I could interview for any job. What ended up happening is I knew a bit of each of the languages and many employers expected me to know a lot about one specifically, so to start and not get overwhelmed I would focus on .net and using entity framework to interact with your SQL database. If you need a frontend I would stick with blazor because even if it is not as popular as javascript, it is mostly C# code so the learning curve for you will be less.
The various microsoft asp.net core tutorials are all pretty good.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/get-started/csharp/tutorial-aspnet-core?view=vs-2019
Honestly, as a newcomer to the industry you won’t notice a significant difference between older .NET frameworks like MVC5 and Core. By all means though, migrating to the newer framework (.NET 5.0 is the most recent release) will help you understand how things are managed, like packages, controllers, etc.
Try not to take on too many things at once, as it can quickly become overwhelming. Focus on adding one feature at a time, or cleaning up some old code that you wrote. Over time, you gain a good wealth of understanding, which will help you transition across to other languages like JavaScript.
C# devs
null reference exceptions