Where to start ASP

l3igwill · November 4, 2016

I am currently a software development student and have take HTML/JavaScript and some PHP. There is a local company that I would really like to intern at but they use ASP.NET. I was wondering if there was any other students or person(s) that could point me in the direction of a proper textbook as I am not sure what companies books are good or bad on this topic.

madknight3 · November 4, 2016

Do you know if they are using WebForms, MVC 5, or Core MVC (aka MVC 6)? They are all ASP.NET options and what you learn kind of depends on the answer.

If you do know, or can find out, what they are using then focus on that.

However, if you don't know what they use then I would say the safest option is to focus on MVC 5 as it's probably the most common ASP.NET option in use right now. WebForms isn't as common these days, but a lot of companies still use it so there's a chance that's what they want. If you have time, it wouldn't hurt to at least look at the basics of WebForms as well to give you an idea of how it works, just in case, but MVC 5 is the safer bet.

WebForms is quite different from MVC 5 (and Core MVC), so MVC 5 skills won't really transfer to WebForms skills but they may still hire you on and have you learn WebForms on the job. It's not an uncommon practice for companies.

It's unlikely they use MVC Core exclusively because it's only recently been released, but even if they did it I would expect they'd still hire someone for the position with MVC 5 experience. By learning MVC 5 you'll get familiar with a lot of the same concepts that Core MVC uses, so while there will still be a lot of new things to learn, the transition shouldn't be too bad.

Also, take some time to go over ASP.NET WebAPI as that's also commonly used.

In terms of learning resources, I would recommend Pluralsight, a video course website, as a place to start. It's $29 USD a month (or $299 USD a year) but you can get 3 months free through the Visual Studio Dev Essentials program. They have multiple courses on each ASP.NET option.

Nuluvius · November 4, 2016

25 minutes ago, madknight3 said:

Also, take some time to go over ASP.NET WebAPI as that's also commonly used.

Agreed and in addition get familiar with some frameworks such as Bootstrap, AngularJS, Knockout and jQuery itself. Single Page Applications (SPA) are all the rage these days and these technologies are some of what can commonly be used to assemble them.

Another area you should spend some time focusing on is databases. You may well encounter SQL as well as NoSQL verieties.

Beyond those I would say that you'd likely benifit from improving your theory such as design patters and best practices. Especially since most of the frameworks that I have mentioned are intended to integrate well in a Model View ViewModel (MVVM) ecosystem.

Lastly why bother with an internship at all? Instead why not concentrate your efforts on finding a real job in the industry to do part time perhapse?