Learning plan for ASP.NET MVC 3 [closed]

Question

I already know HTML and CSS. I'd like to extend my skills to be able to create data driven websites and web applications. I chose to learn ASP.NET MVC.

I tried to dive straight away into Pro ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework but while reading I felt like I was lacking some fundamental knowledge.

Here is what I plan to do to be able to learn the ASP.NET MVC properly :

1. Learn C# with Head First C#.
2. Dive into ASP.NET with Beginning ASP.NET 4: in C# and VB.
3. Go the the NerdDinner tutorial for an introduction on the ASP.NET MVC framework.
4. Then go back to Pro ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework.

Any thoughts on my plan ? Does it sounds good or am I missing something ?

Thank you

Answer 1

I think it's fundamental before jumping into any web framework to understand the programming language of the chosen framework; without understanding the language, it will make productivity and the rate at which you can absorb the material in the Pro ASP.NET MVC framework book much slower.

I think that you could skip 2. and go straight to MVC; whilst WebForms and MVC share a common architecture, there's a lot of stuff in WebForms that wouldn't be worth learning for MVC, such as server controls, skins, themes, etc.

Start with a good introduction to C# book and the online tutorials at http://www.asp.net/mvc. NerdDinner and MVC music store would be good to get going too. After these, I think you'll get a lot more out of Pro ASP.NET MVC framework and its introduction to topics such as test driven development, inversion of control and dependency injection and using an object relational mapping tool to map domain entities in your application to the database schema.

If ASP.NET MVC doesn't work out for you, there are plenty of other frameworks to get going with. You may consider giving Ruby on Rails a try; it may better fit your way of thinking.

Answer 2

Yes, I read the same book as you(except an older version). They talked about inversion of control and repository pattern and things like that, which were very confusing and clouded what asp.net MVC actually did. You should be honest with yourself and evaluate what you know about programming. If you're coming from HTML/CSS backround you are going to have a hard time jumping into MVC without any fundamentals.

So I would do step 1, and them maybe some more books on just learning C#.

Skip step 2.

Do step 3 but there are more tutorials than the nerddinner, find them and do them.

Then do step 4.

I would say don't be discouraged it may take you a while especially if you've never had any exposure to a programming language.

Answer 3

Don't forget to use the asp.net website itself for further tips and tricks.

Not only it contains tutorials, there are a bunch of great blogs/entries being posted on the website every now and then.

I subscribed to most of the feeds and learn a lot new things. I recommend you to follow Scott Gu's and Scott Hanselman's blog.

They also cover a lot of C# topics - You might also want to have a look at Eric Lippert's blog.