Should I be learning .NET at this point?

[urvile]

I might just add that you need to look at where you see your career going. Learning angular, node and whatnot is fine as long as all you see yourself doing is websites. You cannot do real enterprise back end work with javascript (no matter what node fanboys tell you) the language is far too limited for that. However with C# or Java you can but you can also do front end with the same framework. From my perspective technologies like angular are useful to know but shouldn't be the focus. For front end work a good understanding of javascript generally. Including it's pros/cons and understanding the MVC pattern is much more useful.

Then you can apply that knowledge to whatever framework like node, angular whatever the next big thing is....if you want to do back end enterprise work you need to know enterprise level languages and have a really good understanding of OO, patterns, multi-threading (threadpool/tasks, promises...) etc. You also need to be able to understand and implement things like PKI based security and electronic signatures. My entire point is you would be better off learning a multi purpose enterprise grade language and then learning javascript etc..

However it all depends on what you want to do for your career but I can tell you in aus at least. The money is in enterprise back end work not front end work.

 

[urvile]

I have watched the industry steadily move to JS for the front end. (I am sure I am not alone in that observation). I worked on a project where we used proprietary html 5/JS controls implemented in aspx pages.

We then implemented asmx services and passed JSON back and forth. We used Angular on that project too and the guy who implemented it had no previous experience but he did have a lot of experience with back end Java development.

So he was able to quickly pick it up and implement a solid solution under pressure and in a short period of time. You can get to a point where you have guys who only know javascript and just see an API that they call.

Which is fine but if they are asked to implement a controller then they couldn’t do that.* I have worked on larger projects where we had distinct front and back end teams but the front end guys could still do some backend stuff and vice versa because everyone was a C# programmer.

Not really sure where this is going…other than multi-purpose is better than specialised because some technologies come and go. New, large scale and complex projects are still being implemented in C# and Java I can tell you that for a fact.

Don’t get me wrong though javascript is an important language if you want to do front end. I have spent the last 2 years working with JQuery and javascript extensively and man I am over it.

Of course .NET won’t be around forever but there is no realistic replacement at this point (for a number of reasons) for serious backend work.

*unless it's node I guess..... but I am not talking about full stack javascript dev here.....

 

[Broheim]

^ I just read more about ASP.NET Core and how it's so different than ASP.NET and has its own VS Code IDE.

Does the server environment need to be any different (than ASP.NET) to support it? If yes, I suppose I'd have to start old school.

As I mentioned, I'm going to re-write web apps (starting with simpler ones) anyway - so thought this would be a better/wiser starting point.

The environment can be exactly the same or completely different depending on what you want to do.
ASP.NET Core can run on regular old .Net or it can run on dotnet core.
With dotnet core you can deploy it as framework dependent (Where you'll have to install the runtime and libraries on the server) or you can deploy it self contained where everything is bundled in your application.
You can host it in regular old IIS or you can host in stand alone Kestrel (but you should really put something like an Nginx reverse proxy in front), Nginx + Kestrel is really redacted fast.
Of course dotnet core also runs on linux (and OSX), which is the big selling point (but not the biggest if you ask me).

Swear word removed - Programming Moderator Ken g6