[thelist] Learning .NET

David.Cantrell at Gunter.AF.mil David.Cantrell at Gunter.AF.mil
Tue Jan 14 10:34:01 CST 2003


>Hi, any suggestions (online docs, books, courses) on learning .NET ?
>
>I have some ASP background

I'm in the same boat. I've been doing ASP for years and now am moving into a
.NET shop and need to learn the ropes.

I went to the local Barnes & Noble bookstore and picked up a slim copy of
CodeNotes for ASP.NET[0]. Code Note's are sort of a Cliff's Notes for
programmers who need to get the essentials of a new language without being a
1000-page monster. My copy is about 250 pages including the index, and it
covers the "broad-stroke" issues about what .NET is and isn't, where it
resides on the system, how to view the assemblies using ILDASM so you can
see what is going on, the basic concepts behind web forms, server-side
controls (validators, etc), the VIEWSTATE hidden field characteristics, etc.

All that and it was only $20. I haven't yet seen a CodeNotes book cost more
than that. Not bad. They also have a generic .NET book, as well as VB.NET
and C#.NET books, Java, Web Services, JavaScript, etc.

That said, it is no replacement for the SDK, and it doesn't pretend to be.
Between that book, a few online tutorials (asp.net,
aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com, etc) and the .NET SDK I seem to be doing okay. :)

Also, I downloaded Web Matrix for use at home, but I only use it to get the
server started (it must be running to run the ASP.NET server on XP Home),
and then I use Textpad to actually write the pages. You can't do code-behind
anyway with Web Matrix (well, maybe you can, it just takes extra steps) so
it's no real loss. And as any developer worth their salt knows, no
drag-and-drop system is ever going to cut it for real web development. ;)

[0] http://www.codenotes.com/do/books/book?bookID=7

HTH,
-dave



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