ASP.NET Continuous learning

Question

I've been working in ASP.NET for several years now (since the 1.0 days!), but I've never been formally instructed. I'm fully capable of doing pretty much anything I want and I've built several production-level, data-driven sites, including one that does over a million in sales a year (according to the owner). But I'm starting to get the feeling that the holes in my knowlege are dragging my productivity down. I read a lot and try to learn wherever I can to try to stay up with all the new technologies, but sometimes I just don't get it, and I think it's because of my lack of formal training.

Does anyone have any ideas on the best way to fill in these gaps without having to rehash the fundamentals?

Thanks

Answer 1

1) Read the Code of popular Open Source Projects. There are a few that have some really good practices in place.

I recommend checking out BlogEngine.NET. Also if you're more ambitious, I'd suggest looking at the code for ASP.NET MVC 1.0.

2) Sometimes you need to "get back to the basics" when you've been working with a particular framework since a much earlier version. In this case, it can be really useful to pick up a book that covers some of the newer features.

Here's a good book that shows of some of the new features in C# 3.0:

C# 3.0 Design Patterns

3) It may seem odd, but reading up on other languages/platforms (such as Ruby on Rails) will help you in the way you design your classes and code by taking tips of the good and bad of different platforms and combining them.

4) Read some books on general best practices and development methodologies.

Some of these books I recommend are:

The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World

Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction

Answer 2

I'm in the same boat; been a .Net developer for 6 years. While I do have a CS degree, I don't have any formal training in ASP.Net; I learn it on the job as projects come up.

I found the best way to figure out what to learn is to keep your eye on .Net developer blogs. Some I follow:

David Hayden http://www.davidhayden.com/blog.aspx CodingHorror.com (you might be familiar with it ;-) Scott Hanselman http://www.hanselman.com/blog/

Usually from reading their blogs, I pick up on what the latest .Net solutions that are out there and point me in the direction of new tech I should look into further.

Overall though, I can only give you the advice I give junior devs at my company; realize you can't possibly be expected to know everything but always be eager to learn. Good luck!