ASP.NET Getting Started

Ready to learn ASP.NET? Here are my recommendations for videos and articles to learn ASP.NET in a logical order. One thing about learning a new language, it won't happen in five minutes, no matter how badly you wish it did. Sometimes it seems it is taking you forever to learn. I suggest you keep a link-diary of all the pages you have read, tutorials you have walked-through, and videos you have watched. (See my article on Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 for a review on how you can use this product to keep a diary of pages you have studied.) Then when you become discouraged that things aren't moving as rapidly as you would like, review your list of subjects you have learned, and you will realize that you know more than when you started and that you are actually learning!

The two most important suggestions I can give you are: Walk-through the examples and become acquainted with all the features available so that when you need them you'll know they exist. If you keep a link-diary, when you need something and remember you read or watched it somewhere, you can refer to your link diary to find the information.

Use the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and ASP.net web sites, and other internet resources such as tutorials on 4guysfromrolla.com. All of the resources below are FREE unless otherwise noted. You should be able to learn ASP.NET without having to purchase a single book or subscription. I recommend your public library as well. Most libraries have online services to allow patrons to search, check out, place a hold on books, and utilize Interlibrary Loans.

Learn ASP.NET

Creating Pages in ASP.NET

ASP.NET IntelliSense

ASP.NET Code Snippets

ASP.NET Refactoring

ASP.NET at LearnVisualStudio.NET

LearnVisualStudio.NET is a subscription service that provides video tutorials to learn ASP.NET. Although you can purchase a subscription, some videos are offered to view free. When I get tired of reading, I enjoy watching the videos on my laptop while on the treadmill. You download zip files, then open them and click the .wmv movie file to watch them. Many of them come with source code.

Beginners: (Coming from another language and environment)

  • IDE Proficiency Series for Visual Studio.NET 2003 - Be aware 2005 is the latest release and 2008 is available as a beta release.
  • Beginning VB.NET - If you know another language, use this tutorial series to get you up to speed. These tutorials use the Windows Console.
  • Object Oriented VB.NET - Understanding Classes and Objects
    Creating Methods
    Understanding Overloaded Methods (multiple methods with parameters of different types passed in)
    Constructors and Destructors - New(), Dispose(), Finalize()
    Creating and Referencing Assemblies - Creating class libraries, compiling as dll's, referencing from another project.
    Understanding Namespaces - Import
    Inheritance Basics - base/inherited (derived) classes, Inherits, Overides/Overidable, cast an object to its base, DirectCast or CType() method;
    Polymorphism Basics; Favor Composition Over Inheritance; Find What Varies and Encapsulate It; Strategy Design Pattern; Interface Basics; Program to Interfaces and not to Implementations; Abstract Factory Design Pattern; More About Scoping and Interfaces; GRASP; Model-View Seperation Pattern; GoF; VB.NET Delegate Basics; XML Object Serialization
  • Beginning C# - These tutorials use the Windows Console.
  • .NET Framework Class Library
  • ADO.NET

Learning ASP.NET (You know a .NET language)

ASP.NET Client Script