This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Kerrick Long
I’ve been programming for over two decades, and I can’t make a full-stack enterprise web application.
The first lines of code I wrote were in GW-BASIC. When I was in eighth grade, I enrolled in a typing class. Students who finished their typing practice before class ended were given an extra credit opportunity: copying program source code. It was a fantastic test of applied accuracy, and I gladly participated. Eventually I started to pick up on some of the patterns I saw in those BASIC programs. I came up with my own programs—mad libs and simple calculators—and fell in love. I still couldn’t make a web site.
In high school, the library had a book about HTML. I made my first web pages, and my math teacher helped me put them online. I got a job bagging groceries to pay for a laptop, and used that laptop to develop simple web sites for local businesses. These were the first times I was ever paid to write code, and I was hooked. I still couldn’t make a rich web site.
When I got to college I learned JavaScript from another book, and CSS from blog posts and documentation web sites. Before I left college I took a job with the Web Design & Support department, implementing a major redesign of the school’s entire web site in HTML and CSS, with a splash of jQuery for interactivity. I still couldn’t make a web application.
After I left college I scraped together a meager living making Chrome extensions, writing Ruby for freelance clients, and working part-time at Best Buy. I still couldn’t make an enterprise web application.
By 2013 I had my first career job as a front-end developer at an enterprise Software as a Service business. Thanks to EmberJS, an amazing product team, a top-notch architect, and leadership that understood lean software, I built the front-end of our new platform that, over the next seven years, would become so successful that I’d take on brilliant apprentices, build a team, grow to Engineering Manager, and become Director of Software Engineering. But I still couldn’t make a full-stack enterprise web application.
When that company got acquired, I laid off half of my team and lost a part of myself. I could no longer stomach working in management, so I left. I had my mid-life crisis: I moved to the country, bought a farm, went back to college online, and tried to create a startup. I realized I was drifting, and that what I wanted was a steady stream of programming work on a great team. I found exactly that, thanks to the CTO of my previous employer. I am now responsible for improving and maintaining an enterprise Angular application powered by a C# / .NET back-end. It’s a bit rough around the edges, but I tidy as I go. I’m the only purely-front-end programmer on a team of twelve. I ship features our customers love, I help the team improve our processes, and I improve the existing legacy Angular application. But I still can’t make a full-stack enterprise web application.
Last quarter, I learned that our next front-end will use Blazor, not Angular. This means it will use C#, not TypeScript. This quarter, my manager gave the gift of time. Every hour I’m not fixing urgent bugs or implementing important features, he encouraged me to spend learning C#, .NET, and Blazor. The company paid for an O’Reilly Learning Platform subscription, and I’ve collected a list of books to study at work. I’ll still spend my nights and weekends improving at my craft, but instead of learning Ruby on Rails, I’ll be reading generally-applicable books: Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, Domain-Driven Design, Working Effectively with Legacy Code, Object-Oriented Analysis & Design with Applications, Data Modeling Essentials, and Designing Data-Intensive Applications.
I’ll blog and toot about what I learn as I go, and I hope you’ll join me. I’m learning C# and .NET, but starting from two decades of programming experience and a decade of software engineering experience. I’m learning web development, but starting from a deep knowledge of HTTP, browsers, and the front-end. I’m learning architecture and object-orientation, but starting from a background in structured and functional programming.
The only thing I love more than learning is my wife. I can’t wait for this learning journey, and I’m excited to share what I learn. Subscribe to my email list and perhaps you’ll learn something too.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Kerrick Long
Kerrick Long | Sciencx (2025-03-09T22:20:51+00:00) Why I’m Learning C# and .NET After Two Decades of Programming. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/03/09/why-im-learning-c-and-net-after-two-decades-of-programming/
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