How to Nerd

I've had quite a few people asking me over the years how they can get started in professional web development. As a die-hard MS Stack programmer, my advice is limited to that sector; Languages and platforms commonly referred to as "Open Source*", e.g. PHP, MySql, Ruby, Python etc, are outside my specialism and are covered far better by others. So, for what it's worth, here is my short guide to getting started in your learning path for a career as a Web Developer on the Microsoft stack.

(* ASP.NET is open source!)

HTML / CSS

Learn HTML/CSS and basic Javascript; these are the foundation of displaying information on a web page - beginner courses will be fine. At the point you need more advanced help, google any one of the million sites out there that will help you.

CODING

Learn C#; Visual Basic is very much falling out of favour, and any job asking for it is probably dealing with legacy code. I've detailed below some links to free, good resources to get you going, in an order that I think makes sense....

TOOLS

Getting set up - Download and install Visual Studio COMMUNITY edition to help you write your code; apart from a few minor restrictions you probably won't touch, it's the same as the full-fat PROFESSIONAL version. Bob helps you install this in the first C# course

Whilst the running times for these courses may seem pretty short, you might need to pause, replay or just go off and do some more reading on particular subjects. Don't worry if it doesn't all make sense first time through. Stick at it. Type along if you can. Also, don't worry if you're constantly getting errors, fixing problems and thinking things through logically is more than half the job; pay attention to detail, spelling and uppercase/lowercase letters - C# is case sensitive.

DATABASE

You need somewhere to store your data - Download and install SQL Server, Microsoft's stalwart database platform

You don't necessarily need this, but it's good to know because the enterprise scale things you want to work on will probably use this or something like it.

THE COURSES

HTML/CSS

BOB TABOR is very good, explains very thoroughly what's going on and why you need to know the things he's showing you

7 Hours / 21 Modules

INTERMEDIATE LEVEL (optional - only go here if you want to at this stage!):

5 Hours / 7 Modules

BASIC CODE PRINCIPALS

Start with :

BOB TABOR - C# FUNDAMENTALS

8 hours / 24 modules

Bob will take you from "Hello World" to competent coder, and will get you up and running with the tools you need.

DATABASE

SQL FUNDAMENTALS:

3 hours / 6 modules

WEB DEVELOPMENT

ASP.NET CORE

Once you've understood the basics of the elements that make up a STATIC web page, it's now time to make things more interesting, by making web pages DYNAMIC; that is, creating HTML by code. Typically, this is achieved by making a request to code on a server that outputs HTML in response to your request. An example could be a Weather Forecasting website - you type in your postcode, press submit, code runs on the web server and the weather forecast for your area is displayed.

Asp.Net Core 2.0 is the latest version (as at February 2018) of the web development platform, and is designed to be lighter and faster than it's predecessors and will run on Linux (not that I've tried it)

3 Hours / 5 Modules

4 Hours / 7 Modules

2 Hours / 3 Modules

GET FREEBIES

Who doesn't love a freebie? Sign up for Visual Studio Essentials for lots of free stuff and discounts.

This has many benefits including 3 months of Pluralsight Training where there's more great training videos...but don't activate it until you've worked through the above. I can recommend any course by Shawn Wildermuth.

OTHER RESOURCES

The home of ASP.NET for news, samples and links to other cool stuff

Useful forums if you have a question: