I busted my butt off learning C#, ASP.NET MVC, Entity Framework, JavaScript, jQuery, HTML, CSS APIs, RESTful Services, CRUD, etc... For the past 3 months. I've also learned PHP because I actually already knew PHP from when I was like 12 but the features are almost identical to C# and JavaScript so super easy to get caught up on. For some reason, there doesn't seem to be nearly the community support for ASP.NET/C# as for other technologies... I don't get it. I can learn Ruby, Python, and JS anywhere... And talk to tons doing the same, but not so with ASP.NET, which is professionally used a ton and also open-source.
The thing with me is, I love learning and teaching... But I do want to actually code professionally for at least a while. Yet, I keep getting split into different paths and it's becoming a hinderance. For example, I'll go combing the internet forums I belong to looking for a project I can hop on... And almost every single time, I find a guy who could use me... Yet I need to learn an entire new framework/language. I've just spent probably the equivalent to 6 months of full-time college study learning all of what I know... And while I am a totally humble guy, it was no easy feat learning C#, ASP.NET MVC, vanilla JS, jQuery, HTML, Mircrosoft SQL Server, and I also even studied relational database design, design patterns, architectures, etc...
I want to use those things. I don't want to now spend another 3 months 12 hours a day learning Node, Mongo, Ruby, and all those other stacks and techs. My intuition tells me that there must be a proeject out there that would be perfect for me, but I'm having a tough time finding it. I found another guy who does ASP.NET MVC who agreed to work on one of my personal projects with me, but he ditched me for some paid clients of his (understandable).
Do you have any advice for me? It's killing me because I am literally hungry; I have more drive and passion for computer programming than for anything I've ever had in my life. At no other time have I been able to spend 15 hours straight doing something and not get tired of it on a regular basis. I've tried perusing GitHub, I've tried CodeTriage... So far, I'm come up with nil. Those sites send me random projects that either have no readmes or where I can't understand the actual implications of the projects a lot of times. I'm looking for another guy or gal with as much passion as I where we both just work our butts off pushing each other to our limits working on a project several times a week. For some reason, this seems to be very hard to find. Which is funny, considering I'll even work for free at this point.
Advice appreciated, thanks.
PS: I DO love learning so much, this is why I am rounding out my PHP knowledge, and I AM in a Node.JS course, I just would rather learn these things at a nicer pace while working on stuff I currently know... preferably not alone. Most of my personal projects require at least a year of work on my part. I plan to also learn React and Angular eventually but am still getting CSS responsive down.
Learning is always a good thing in my opinion. Even if you don't directly use the things you read up on, often you'll find yourself applying the patterns and practices you gain from looking at problems with a different tool set. It's great that you have drive, and you should keep feeding that passion.
Now regarding the .NET/ASP.NET landscape. That set of technologies have been in the corporate bubble so to speak for a long time. It wasn't easy for everyone to get into without spending some significant $$ and even then you still had to spend the time learning the tool. That's totally changed now within the past 2 or 3 years. Visual Studio has free version, the core of .NET is open sourced along with many of the libraries attached to it. You'll generally find that there's a newfound excited for alot of us who have been in the space for a while. Fact is though, it's still catching up to some of these other languages and platforms that have been cross platform and/or open source from the beginning. When I say catch up, I'm not talking about capability, but more so acceptance in the open source landscape. Enterprise developers traditionally haven't been know to be the most engaged with regards to community. Now that .NET is in a new space, you can expect to see increased interest and growth from small and large companies across the board.
Let me tell you the story of a colleague of mind from Orlando, FL. A few years back he was learning .NET and he didn't see much community support either. So guess what he did. He created a web site, reach outed and started having MeetUp about it. Through that he learned more, grew as a developer and also opened himself up to quite a few job opportunities. That group now can be found here http://www.onetug.org. It's still going strong and now has a board of members driving it forward.
So what am I trying to get at. If you're really passionate about something, sometimes you have try to create that environment you want by sharing that passion and encouraging the passion of others. Write blogs about what you're learning, maybe do some YouTube videos on the specific areas that you think are really cool. You'll be surprised by the feedback (positive and negative) that you'll get. The point is ... put yourself out there and see what you find. That doesn't mean just putting out a resume for a job.
Now I can't speak about your location, but I live in South Florida. There's tons of .NET developers and an active community down here. Same can be said for Orlando, Tampa, North Carolina, and a few other places across the US. What I've found is sometimes people don't know where to do or even know that groups exist for you to be a part of.
I'll leave you with this video to watch. It's free and I think it's worth the time http://getinvolved.hanselman.com.
Dong Nguyen
Web Developer
There is only one thing you really need to learn: JavaScript :)