Aug
13
The easy way to learn .NET
Filed Under .NET, Programming | 1 Comment
InnerWorkings is one of the best resources for learning .NET that I’ve come across. They have 500+ hours of training material, all hands-on development, not just reading or watching videos.
The process is very effective. You purchase and download a training course. You’re then presented with a programming challenge. You click a button in the InnerWorkings interface to open up Visual Studio with the basic project code. You then write the code needed to complete the challenge.
During the coding process you’re aided by a VS add-in which allows you to easily refresh yourself on the challenge. When you’re done, you click another button to submit your solution to be verified. Your solution either passes, in which case you’re done, or doesn’t pass, in which case you’re given the opportunity to correct your solution.
A couple of things are particularly nice about this.
- You’re given a very clear task. Anything that helps you stay focused while learning a new environment is tremendously helpful. When everything is new I find it tremendously hard to stay on track. I constantly discover new and interesting things elsewhere while going through documentation that pulls my attention off the task at hand. “Guard rails” so to speak I find very helpful.
- You’re given starter code to work with. This helps you in two ways. First, it shows you how to get started, teaching you some best-practices along the way. Second, it alleviates a lot of the tedious startup work involved in starting from scratch.
I’m looking forward to working through a few of the challenges.