Getting .NET Experience

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MurrayM

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#151467 26-Aug-2014 16:59

I'm an old school programmer who was taught COBOL, BASIC, assembler and PL/1 by ATI back in the mid 80's. I spent five years working for a large software house in the late 80's / early 90's before starting my own small business offering custom programming on PC's. Around 2001 I switched to doing mainly web development for small businesses where I did everything (front and back ends, using PHP for back end stuff).

Now I'm tired of the up and down nature of being self-employed and I'm wanting to go and work for someone else but I'm finding that so many jobs require .NET and C#, of which I have no experience (I'd like to move out of the web development and more into a traditional programming role). I do have a bit of Visual Basic and VBA experience, and I've played with C many years ago.

How do people get into .NET and C#? Is it being taught in universities these days and therefore graduates are arriving with those skills already? Or are people teaching themselves? Or are some companies actually spending time up-skilling people by sending staff on courses, etc?

I could sit down and read a few books and play around with .NET and C# myself (I think there's a basic Visual Studio package that is free to use). But would that be enough to get me a junior .NET role?

gzt

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#1116018 26-Aug-2014 17:49

In Auckland or Whangarei? This could be enough to get you started.

It is not unusual to see/hear things like that come up. Imho there is still a fair bit of legacy stuff around. Combine that with your obvious web experience and you have the makings of a working transition.

Ragnor

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#1116020 26-Aug-2014 17:52

http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/ is worth a look also tons of content on http://channel9.msdn.com/

MurrayM

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#1116022 26-Aug-2014 17:54

gzt: In Auckland or Whangarei? This could be enough to get you started.

It is not unusual to see/hear things like that come up. Imho there is still a fair bit of legacy stuff around. Combine that with your obvious web experience and you have the makings of a working transition.

That's a coincidence, I actually applied for that very job this morning!

MurrayM

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#1116024 26-Aug-2014 17:58

Ragnor: http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/ is worth a look also tons of content on http://channel9.msdn.com/

Thanks for that, it's certainly worth looking into and would at the very least give me an understanding of the technologies. I might as well up-skill myself while I'm waiting for a job to come along. Of course it won't help with the jobs that want people with several years of .NET experience, but then I'm realistic enough to be going for a junior / intermediate role to start with just to get my foot in the door.

kingdragonfly

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#1120422 2-Sep-2014 12:34

Worldwide, please be aware that custom written systems are being eroded by the countless of-the-shelf solutions. You're also competing against a sea of inexpensive Indian programmers.

Since you're alluding to Trademe, I'm guessing you're looking into in Wellington New Zealand

Locally there was a long dry period of several years. The only IT shops doing large scale development that I know was Datacom, Intergen and Fronde.

There has be a recent demand for DotNet programmers, moving against the trend.

However that's a relatively recent development, no pun intended. It being driven by TradeMe and Xero. KiwiBank has been looking of Microsoft talent also.

If you're looking to change career paths I'd suggest you on one of two possibilities

1) first SharePoint administration, and then later SharePoint development using DotNet.

2) Website DotNet development on Azure, with an emphasis on SQL Azure database driven design.

Either path is very hard. I'd expect one year of concentrated learning, assuming you already have a strong IT background.

roobarb

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#1120460 2-Sep-2014 13:24

Charles Petzold wrote one of the first books on programming Windows back in the 80s.

http://www.charlespetzold.com/dotnet/

I would start with his ".NET Book Zero".

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TwoSeven

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#1120462 2-Sep-2014 13:26

+1 for virtual academy.

However, for experience, trying doing the web development using C#/.Net instead of whatever other toolset. Typically, JQuery, MVC, .C#, Knockout, Modernizer, WebApi, SignalR and WCF are some of the Microsoft and Partner technologies.

One can get a feel for them in Visual Studio Express.

I don't see many from the ground up windows applications these days (unless it is for a specific purpose requiring that technology), instead I see a lot of Web SPA (Single Page Applications - to give a term to google) using Responsive Design. Also, much of the functionality is put into Web Services often with a Wrapper (such as web api) over the top. This means that the web application can be easily ported to native device apps (IOS, Android, MS Web Store etc) and/or the cloud (such as Azure)

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MurrayM

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#1120504 2-Sep-2014 14:24

Thanks for all the comments guys. The landscape has certainly changed a lot since I was working for a software house back in the 80's!

gzt

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#1120514 2-Sep-2014 14:32

kingdragonfly: Worldwide, please be aware that custom written systems are being eroded by the countless of-the-shelf solutions.

This is not a problem. Many of those 'off-the-shelf' solutions were designed and developed in New Zealand for world markets and continue to be further developed here.

JWR

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#1120553 2-Sep-2014 15:47

roobarb: Charles Petzold wrote one of the first books on programming Windows back in the 80s.

http://www.charlespetzold.com/dotnet/

I would start with his ".NET Book Zero".

btw that is officially a free book too.

markl

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#1120555 2-Sep-2014 15:53

kingdragonfly:

If you're looking to change career paths I'd suggest you on one of two possibilities

1) first SharePoint administration, and then later SharePoint development using DotNet.

2) Website DotNet development on Azure, with an emphasis on SQL Azure database driven design.

Eek. I'd stay away from #1 if you value your sanity. Far, FAR away....

For something a tad more constructive, I'd tentatively agree with #2...there is a massive push towards cloud/Azure from Microsoft, and you'll find that skills learnt in that area are directly transferrable to other ASP.Net disciplines also.