How to utilize my learning power in ASP.NET studies? - asp.net

I've recently tried to switch to ASP.NET. Did I write switch? I meant to learn it, however I am not really sure how to proceed. I've opened several videos - and really watched them with enthusiasm however they seem to be very general. It's not like there are tons of sources on learning PHP.
Do you know some great learning procedure including the websites and sources to learn from so I can learn it ASAP?
I got one project waiting here -> the website is kinda simple Online flash games. The graphics and HTML's finished but I want to try to do it in ASP.NET with MS SQL. I'm already experienced in C# thus I won't need a lot of insight into that, although I'm absolutely unaware of how to do the website, cute urls, what the basic principles in coding are etc..etc.. :)

Since you have a PHP background, I'd recommend that you try out ASP.NET MVC - if you are familiar with the MVC design pattern, it should be a rather painless 'switch'. The "Learn ASP.NET MVC" section is very nice. There's also an RSS feed (on the site above) that contains many great blog posts regarding the technology; furthermore, there's the NerdDinner sample website with a complete tutorial. If you follow the last one, you should be ready with the site in no time :)

I have found these Microsoft videos to be very useful as study material. Videos

Related

Video Conference in ASP.NET C# Website

Well, I am developing a virtual classroom i.e. Online classroom, It is a website which provides faculties and students an interactive way of learning. I am almost done just I am stuck with this video conferencing module. I am using ASP.NET C#. I have searched a lot for this. Some information I found is:
1) I got to know about ConferenceXP module. Which is developed by microsoft and enables developers to use it to build their own video-audio conference. I also searched a lot about it, but I am confused on how to implement it in my website. Any suggestion with steps on how to use conferenceXP in website.
2) Though i searched a lot, but yet if some links were left, I am asking this again that Is there any better and easier way( Easier and fast beacuse i need to implement this into my website in 7 days) to implement video-audio chat application in website using C#(Or any other technology working with visual studio).
3) While searching I found something like I can use Skype with my online classroom, Any suggestions related this?
Thanks in advance.
You can use Openmeetings from regardless of your technology. The whole interface is SOAP/REST based.

Microsoft WebMatrix: what is it?

I'm a little confused about new Microsoft products.
I'm a classic webform Asp.Net developer. I know exists also Asp.Net MVC with a different approach based on Mvc pattern.
Now, i know exists also WebMatrix that uses new Razor "notation".
Can someone explain me what are the main difference between that "technology" ? When use WebMatrix, when WebForm ?
Thanks!
Webmatrix is a platform that integrates a variety of recently released technologies such as IIS Express, Asp.Net Webforms, Razor, SQL Express etc. I guess from what I have been reading it's a way that eases the barrier to entry, for non-MS developers, into the MS world. In addition you can also use code your site in PHP and use a variety of open source tools for developing web sites. To directly answer your question, in you planning on creating a complex web application, WebMatrix may not be the solution you're looking for.
As a reference, I suggest reading through Scott Gu's Introduction to Webmatrix
WebMatrix will be able to take
advantage of these technologies to
facilitate a simplified web
development workload that is useful
beyond professional development
scenarios – and which enables even
more developers to be able to learn
and take advantage of ASP.NET for a
wider variety of scenarios on the web.
If you are a professional developer
who has spent years with .NET you will
likely look at the below steps and
think – this scenario is so basic -
you need to understand so much more
than just this to build a “real”
application. What about encapsulated
business logic, data access layers,
ORMs, etc? Well, if you are building
a critical business application that
you want to be maintainable for years
then you do need to understand and
think about these scenarios.
Imagine, though, that you are trying
to teach a friend or one of your
children how to build their first
simple application – and they are new
to programming. Variables,
if-statements, loops, and plain old
HTML are still concepts they are
likely grappling with. Classes and
objects are concepts they haven’t even
heard of yet. Helping them get a
scenario like below up and running
quickly (without requiring them to
master lots of new concepts and steps)
will make it much more likely that
they’ll be successful – and hopefully
cause them to want to continue to
learn more.
One of the things we are trying to-do
with WebMatrix is reach an audience
who might eventually be able to be
advanced VS/.NET developers – but who
find the first learning step today too
daunting, and who struggle to get
started.
If someone is still interested: a pretty good lessons here http://habrahabr.ru/company/microsoft/blog/136004/ . This link is for those, who understand russian.
Shortly speaking WebMatrix allows you to conveniently mix up C# server code and html (this mixing is provided by simple Razor sytax). Also in WbeMatrix 2.0(beta version now) is provided full IntelliSense for html/css/c# code.

ASP.Net Learning

Hi i am trying to build a website usign ASP.NET what is the best resource or way to learn it?
Also do i need DotNetNuke or something similar to manage my project?
Thanks in advance.
I highly recommend staying far, far away from DotNetNuke, or any CMS for that matter. If your goal is to learn the language then getting tangled up in a [horrible] CMS will only make it harder on you.
IMO, DotNetNuke would be overkill and will likely confuse you more than help as they have implemented many advanced designs to make it as modular as possible. I.e., it will not be clear why they are doing things the way they are.
The simplest means to learn is to do it. Create a regular ASP.NET site for some personal or non-critical purpose. In terms of resources, there are plenty on the Internet of course beyond search. Here are a few:
ASP.NET
MSDN Magazine
Scott Guthrie's blog
In addition to stuff on the Internet, I would read lots of books. You can either purchase them individually or you could look at an online resource which allows you read many such as Books 24x7 or Safari Books
The official site is a good start: http://www.asp.net/
The best way to learn is to do. Begin a website, and when you run into a problem you can't fix or figure out, check here or the sites others mentioned. I find books useful as references while I am working on a project but not as useful for reading straight through.
I also like www.codeproject.com when I am stuck.
DotNetNuke is an open source Content Management system (CMS). I would first learn ASP.Net. Try creating some sample web sites. As Thomas has rightly pointed out that DotNetNuke is an overkill.

Framework /starting point for social networking site in .NET?

I did do some googling and searching on this site but did not find exactly what I was looking for.
I'm hoping that someone can point me in the right direction here. I'm an ASP.NET/SQL Server developer and would like to develop a (intially) basic social networking site (gasp). Before I start from scratch with a blank solution in ASP.NET, I'm wondering if there are any frameworks out there ASP.NET specific that would serve as a good starting point. I'm already thinking of using the Google Maps jquery control for my Google Maps integration, as well as the 'sharethis' control for my social networking website sharing integration. Captcha for human authentication... But other than that I'm not sure what I can leverage... Nothing on Google jumped out at me on my search terms.
I'm also wondering if anyone else has done something similar and could share their post mortem/war stories with me.
I'm also open to learning a new platform/language if it would mean saving time - my experience is mostly in ASP.NET, so that is what I plan on using if it makes the most sense. My initial requirements are basic and realistic - profile setup (images, information, etc.), 'group' creation, Google Map integration, calendar controls shared by groups, SMS support, discussion forums among groups, searching for groups, OpenID integration most likely, etc. I am not going to try to build the entire site and then release it, but take baby steps and release pieces of functionality at a time.
Any advice is greatly appreciated for a broad question such as this. Thanks again.
I've found DotNetOpenAuth which seems to be a nice API for handling OpenID for ASP.NET web forms. They also have an ASP.NET MVC version
I also found MS Web Platform. This looks like some good stuff. Anyone ever use it and think it would do well for this sort of app?
I found a library for DotNetNuke called ActiveSocial. It's priced right ($500) and has more than the features I need but lacks some. I wonder if anyone here has ever used AS before. Is DNN easy to extend so I can add Google Maps functionality and such? It doesn't say anywhere on snowcovered (the vendor that sells AS) if AS comes with the source. If it didn't, then I might be screwed because I wouldn't be able to integrate the functionality I want.
I went through this exercise about 15 months ago when I built a SNS for a client. Hoping to find some basic framework for Friends, Chat, Profiles etc I was pretty disappointed.
That said, in retrospect I wish rather than building one that we would have purchased a solution like Community Server. As with most projects I looked at the problem scope with beer, no strike that, ambitious goggles on and the level of work to cover all the edge cases was more than I imagined.
Tread careful my friend, tread careful.
I think this is what you're looking for. Kigg is an open source ASP.NET MVC app that would be a good starting point for what you want. Here is the url: http://www.codeplex.com/Kigg
You can also find a site that is using this here: http://dotnetshoutout.com/
At the very least you will learn the ASP.NET MVC framework which is fantastic.
While not exactly intended to be used for social networking sites, both of these frameworks can help you so you don't have to start from scratch:
DotNetNuke: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/
Umbraco: http://umbraco.org/
Also, for an out of the box solution (no code involved) you could always try this: http://www.ning.com/
Good luck!

What are other ASP.NET web applications that are as well done as StackOverflow?

It's my understanding that StackOverflow (SO) was built using ASP.NET. What surprised me is it's so well designed and well implemented. Without knowing much about the internals of SO, here are my observations and educated guesses:
SO appears to be highly scalable.
URLs in SO are friendly.
It appears that SO does not contain a bunch of controls as most ASP.NET apps I've seen.
Judiciously and effectively use of Ajax requests, opacity animation, etc. Viewing source tells me SO is using jQuery.
SO runs on all major browsers (that I've used and this list includes IE, FF, Chrome, Opera).
Edit: 6. Comet-like feature: As you type your answer, if there is any other answer posted, you get the notification. If you choose to load it, of course only a partial page refresh is done and your answer remain intact. Have yet to see this in any other ASP.NET app.
So my questions:
What are other ASP.NET web
applications that are as well done
as StackOverflow and what are their
features that you like?
Can you share
about some more details about SO,
for example is SO built using
ASP.NET MVC or something else?
SO is built using ASP.NET MVC as explained by Jeff Atwood and his team in this podcast organised by Scott Hanselman
Listening to the podcast would be worthwhile.
One surprising element about SO which was revealed in the podcast is that SO runs on a single server (IIS & SQL Server). I was surprised by this.
ASP.NET Forms allows developers to build UIs in much the same way as .NET Windows Forms.
The whole idea was that a developer that knew how to build a 'Fat Client' Windows form could transfer those skills to ASP.NET forms. ASP.NET forms even allowed developers to pretty much put code on the same set of control events. The developer was sheilded from having to have any knowledge of HTML, HTTP, Javascript etc.
Unfortunately this resulted in large POSTs containing monster viewstate being generated frequently and hence a poor user experience. This is what has given ASP.NET a bad rep. In reality its the original ASP.NET Forms that should have the bad rep.
ASP.NET MVC, amoungst other things, embraces the nature of HTTP rather than trying to hide it. AJAX and JQuery are also features of MVC which add to the overall result being better.
That said having a great tool is useless without great vision, design and skill, the SO team clearly have those in abundance.
Orkut.com - A social networking site by google uses ASP.NET
SO was build with ASP.NET MVC. Jeff hired good developers, had a good vision, and ran his screens through a real designer.
Myspace.com uses ASP.net, which proves the scalability of the platform in general. You can also learn a lot about stackoverflow itself from reading the stackoverflow blog and listening to the stackoverflow podcasts.
Many of the things you point out about are actually due to the use of ASP.NET MVC. Pretty URLs come out of the box, non-standard controls, well nothing comes out of the box with MVC so you have to reinvent everything :), and finally the AJAX is pretty much a requirement for ASP.NET MVC if you want to do anything intelligent with it.
ASP.NET MVC alone does not account for the things which makes StackOverflow truly successful that's all down to the idea, execution, and the fact that Jeff and Joel combined garners a huge following on the net.
You can also learn quite a lot about the development, planning(!), etc in the two HanselMinutes podcasts on SO:
StackOverflow uses ASP.NET MVC - Jeff Atwood and his technical team
Behind the Scenes - StackOverflow and Jeff Atwood - Part 2
Available in numerous audio formats, as well as transcribed.
ASP.NET creates websites limited only by the talent of the developers.
The same can be said for virtually any framework.
That said, Windows Server/IIS/.NET is a hugely scalable concept, as we serve far far more traffic than SO on a ASP.NET site (Then again, we have 32 servers).
As mentioned in one of the answers here, myspace.com uses ASP.NET (as far as I know it was written in ColdFusion and used BlueDragon for .NET).
One other site is plentyoffish.com (60M hits per day).
If you want to read more about scalability see http://highscalability.com

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