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Archives for March 2014

Why you should learn ASP.NET

March 19, 2014 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

Why you should learn ASP.NET

Developers get caught up in the which language is best to learn or the my language is better than yours mentality. The truth is there in no particular language that trumps them all. Odds are that over your career as a software developer you will have to learn many different programing languages and frameworks. For that reason I am going to explain why ASP.NET is the worlds best framework; not really but I do want to explain why you may want to learn ASP.NET. asp.net logo

Mature Framework

Have you ever spent weeks learning a new framework only to find out later that support has been dropped for that framework? Maybe the framework your working with hasn’t lost support, but have noticed releases are slowing down. Developers in ASP.NET don’t have that worry. ASP.NET is not a new framework in fact it was first released in 2002 by Microsoft. ASP.NET was released as an upgrade from the Active Server Pages (ASP). Since ASP.NET has been around since 2002 means it is a mature framework with many features and community support.

It’s developed by Microsoft

Did I mention that ASP.NET is a Microsoft product? Because Microsoft backs the ASP.NET framework developers can choose any .NET language that want to work with C# or VB.NET.  If you have a development team working a Webform application and half the team wants to code in VB.NET while the other half want to use C# that’s okay because ASP.NET was built on a Common Language Runtime (CLR). Microsoft also bring with it a large set of tools that integrate well with ASP.NET, for example:

  • SQL Server – Database
  • Azure – Cloud Services Platform
  • Visual Studio – Integrated Development Environment

In 2012 I switched from developing in VB.NET to PHP, from a syntax perspective I didn’t really have any problems.  PHP was a language I had experience with and found it easy to pick up, but the real issue from me was the IDE. I was so used to Visual Studio that is was hard to use a plain text editor like Sublime Text or Text Wrangler, but I did settle on using Netbeans. Netbeans is a great product, however I had spent over 2 years using Visual Studio and had a hard time adjusting. The same situation arose when I switched from SQL Server to MySQL, Microsoft just has these other tools beat.

Market Demand

I know Microsoft is seen as some evil corporation in developer circles but Microsoft knows how to write software. For that reason the ASP.NET framework is a top chose in government and financial institutions. These institutions want to their application running in a secure environment which happens to be a Windows environment. Careers in Government, Finance, Energy, and Medical industries make up a large part of the US economy. The good news is these industries are hiring and one of skills they are searching for is experience in ASP.NET. In simple terms, there are a lot more .NET openings then there are candidates to fill those positions. Take a look at the job sites:

  • .NET Developer search on Monster
  • .NET Developer search on Dice
  • ASP.NET search on Indeed
  • Craiglist Nashville – In Nashville I have some contacts who have told me there is a market shortage of .NET developers. Nashville has a heavy presence in both the Medical and Financial Industry.

 

ASP.NET Pays the Bills

Okay here is what you really wanted to know. How much do ASP.NET developers make? In the 2013 salary survey conducted by Visual Studio the Magazine, the average ASP.NET Developer’s salary is $94,784. The average developer in this study typically had a 4 year degree and 12.5 years experience. Salaries for ASP.NET developers have steady risen over the past few years and have fared well during the recession. The average household brings in around $50K, which means the average ASP.NET almost makes twice as much as the average household. So no worries about making ends meat in ASP.NET.

ASP.NET is a mature framework with a very large community and a ton of support from Microsoft. Developers have a wide range of tools to leverage that are backed by the Microsoft brand. Career wise ASP.NET developer are in high demand with an average salary around $94,784. My career has mostly centered around ASP.NET so I might be biased but overall I would recommend it as a option for a wide range of products.  What are your thoughts on the ASP.NET framework?

 

Filed Under: Career

Book Review – In the Plex

March 15, 2014 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

Ever wondered: How did Google get started? What about what is like to work at Google from day one? How did Google build an empire in it’s first 10 years? If so then pick up a copy of In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Live.

avitar holding book

Overview

In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives begins with Google starting as a thesis project for the Larry Paige and Sergey Brin as PhD candidate students at Stanford. The founders had great access to resources and talent while at working on the project at Stanford, but they soon realized for their search engine to grow they would have to move from a research project to company. The founders were not concerned with making money, it more was more about the cost of crawling the web and storing that data too big for a PhD project. The book covers Google from inception to 2011 about a ten year time span. During this time span Google starts out as a small start-up renting a garage focusing solely on Search at that time. In the late 90’s the Search business was not a profitable business model. Since Search was not profitable Search Engines gave poor results until Google came around. Google’s only real competition in the early years came from Excite but Excite’s growth was capped because the parent company did not believe Search would be profitable. In the end it turns out Search can be very profitable, I mean profitable in the 10’s of billions. In The Plex covers Adsense, Gmail, YouTube, and other Google technologies as well.

Googly Culture

Are they Googly? The culture of Google is modeled around a college campus employees work as students and their manager acts more as Professor rather than a traditional manager. In a typical week an employee works 80% of the time on their project but are allowed to work the other 20% of the time on a project of their choosing. From the start the founders insisted on hiring research minded Computer Scientist from elite Computer Science Universities, this combined with the 20% rule lead to many many innovations at Google. Many innovations developed at Google were published but by the time the results were released Google already had a huge lead on their competitors.

Map Reduce

One of the biggest innovations that came out of Google in the early years was the Map Reduce project. Map Reduce  was published by Jeffrey Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat in 2004. Map Reduce basically gives Google the ability to process large data sets in a relatively short amount of time. The Map Reduce paper was the brain child behind the Open-Source Apache Hadoop technology used by Yahoo, Facebook, and many others. Any company that deals with large amounts of data is using a Map Reduce related product.

Should you read it?

Google is the pioneer in big data before it was Big Data. So much of the big data buzz today is built around those innovations and practices developed by Google. Regardless of what your job title In The Plex will be very beneficial. In The Plex enabled me to have a practical application of how big data and machine learning can benefit the user. Companies are leveraging big data analytics for multiple purposes, by reading In the Plex you can see where is all started.

Tell me what you thought of the book or maybe you have a book that is similar that you think I should read. Just post in the comments below.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Big Data, Book Review, Books, Google, Hadoop, Machine Learning

Getting Started with MVC

March 4, 2014 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

[bra_highlight style=”highlight2″]In this post “Getting started with MVC” we assume you already have a grasp on how the MVC pattern works. If not, check my first article on this topic ASP.NET MVC Overview.[/bra_highlight]

What is Visual Studio?

Visual Studio is a full blown Integration Development Environment or IDE. Not everyone uses one, but I couldn’t imagine developing without one. In the past I have worked with Eclipse, Netbeans, Dreamweaver, and others but Visual Studio is my favorite. My first IDE experience was using Visual Studio 2005 for WinForms (Desktop Applications), let me just say that in the last 4 years Microsoft has made some amazing improvements to Visual Studio. Most of the improvements in Visual Studio hava catered to web developers. For anyone getting started with MVC, Visual Studio is the first place to start.

Ready to get started developing your first application in MVC?

First thing we will need to do is download Visual Studio 2013 Express.  Microsoft offers a few different versions of Visual Studio that come with 90 day trials, but for our development we will use the Visual Studio Express 2013 for Web. The Express version is Microsoft’s scaled down version, but is also free. If you are going to be developing professional you will want to purchase the Ultimate, Premium, or Professional versions.

Let’s get started

  1. Go to Visual Studio 2013 Express and select the Express Web chose VS Web Express
  2. Choose the Install Now optioninstall now
  3. Log in or Signup for Microsoft Accountlogin
  4. Fill out Full Name, Contact e-mail, Country, and create Visual Studio online account then EXPRESStextboxes to fill out
  5. Open .exe file downloaded Open EXE
  6. Accept License and Privacy Policy and Press Install Accept TOS
  7. The installation will take a few minutes. You are ready to go once you get the option to Launch.  CLICK LAUNCHlaunch VS13

You now have one the most powerful tool available to create ASP.NET MVC web applications. If you are not familiar with developing in an IDE then it might take some time to get used to; luckily the web is full of resources. Check back here for more tips on navigating through Visual Studio 2013 or feel free to ask questions below.

Filed Under: MVC Tagged With: ASP.NET, MVC, Tutorial, Visual Studio 2013

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