In my last post I tried to clarify some confusion about what .NET is, and to dispel some myths about learning it. In this post I want to expand on that and talk about some reasons why you should consider pursuing a career as a .NET developer.
The .NET platform is the most powerful and flexible development platform available today, and the need for skilled .NET developers is growing faster than the supply. That alone should be reason enough to convince you.
Employability is a powerful motivator! However, if you need more convincing, I can provide that for you.
For many years Microsoft pretty much owned the PC and operating system markets. It took a while for Apple to catch up, and Microsoft rode its success in those areas as long as it could. But the explosion of popularity in mobile devices put iOS and Android firmly in place as the most popular operating systems – despite Microsoft’s best efforts with Windows Phone.
The Architecture
Today, Microsoft is no longer the OS king it once was. But rather than keep beating the proverbial dead horse (Windows), Microsoft chose to completely re-architect it’s .NET Windows development platform, making it cross-platform and open source, and making it free for developers to use.
This has created an environment of total transparency. Microsoft determined that the best cross-platform developer stack is a stack that draws collaboration from a multitude of minds, not just the ones in Microsoft cubicles. This has placed C# and .NET Core stack among the very best tools available for reliable agile development.
The Tools
Speaking of those tools, we have to give credit to Visual Studio. With VS 2017, and now with VS 2019, Microsoft has built the very best interactive development environments (IDE) on the market today.
The IDE has every feature a developer could possibly want, from excellent third party extensions like ReSharper, to direct and seamless GIT integration, to Visual Studio Code, a super light-weight, super-fast, cross-platform code editor.
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The Skills
One of the biggest reasons you should consider learning C# and .NET, however, is that doing so will teach you the skills you need to quickly learn and adapt to any of a wide variety of additional C-type languages, including C++, Java, Objective-C, and even JavaScript.
My personal belief is that C# is the best teacher for these other languages. If you are fluent in C#, becoming fluent in these other languages is a simple task.
The Community
Having support when you need it is incredibly important for software developers. None of us has all the answers, and so we often turn to our development community for support and assistance. The size of that community matters. The larger your community is, the better your support network will be.
The support network for C# and .NET is enormous. This is a platform that has an almost 20-year evolutionary history. Whether it’s support from fellow developers you need, or support from third party tools and libraries, the .NET platform, the C# language, and the Visual Studio IDE have one of the strongest and largest development communities out there.
The Future
The demand for .NET developers cannot be overstated. C# continues to be one of the most popular languages with developers, and that popularity is growing. The number of available .NET jobs continues to grow with no end in sight.
C# continues to grow in its evolution. Each new version adds new and more complex features, and thanks to its role in Unity, it will likely continue to grow in relevancy in the world of VR as well.
With .NET Core, developers can learn a new, and yet very familiar feeling, development platform that helps them build powerful applications quickly for multiple operating systems.
In a way, you might say Microsoft has bet the farm on .NET Core, banking on it becoming the developer’s choice of platform and supplementary tools for the foreseeable future. And in my opinion, there isn’t a better platform to get started with than .NET.
About the Author
Andrew Jensen has spent more than 25 years in the IT industry and in academia as a business owner, manager and director, corporate trainer, software developer, technical writer, research scientist, teacher, and student. He is the co-founder and CEO of jTEC Web Services and jTEC University, and the author of the curriculum in use at Coder Foundry, a .NET-based coding bootcamp located in Kernersville, North Carolina, USA. His research work, both in the effects of risk on technology acceptance and in IT education through embodied pedagogical agents, has been published in international academic journals and various conference proceedings. Andrew also taches .NET for OpenClassrooms.
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