Best Online Courses for .NET Developers

Programming Courses Online

.NET is a software development framework that developers can use to create applications in languages such as C#, Visual Basic, F#, and ASP.NET. As Microsoft defines it, the .NET Framework is a “cross-platform, open source developer platform” that supports many languages and their libraries, which programmers can use for game development, mobile app creation, desktop software, embedded device programming, and more.

In this .NET programming tutorial, we will list some of the best places online to learn how to work with the .NET framework. Since .NET is a framework and not a language itself, the courses listed herein will typically also teach you how to code in a language as well. Usually the language portion of the coursework will be in either C# or ASP.NET. However, if you do not have any coding experience – or do not know those languages specifically – do not worry, as the classes contained herein offer introductory lessons for the uninitiated.

.NET Courses for Beginners

The programmer courses listed in this section are geared specifically to those that are new to software development in general, OR have experience with other programming languages and frameworks, but now want to add .NET (and its related languages) to their repertoire. Some of these courses may also move into the intermediate and advanced realm of .NET development also, but not before building a solid foundation of basic .NET coding principles.

.NET for Beginners from TechRepublic Academy

The .NET for Beginners from TechRepublic Academy is a fairly robust course, despite its simplistic name. It hovers at the 7 hour mark and features 68 lectures from instructor Mark Lassoff, who grew up programming as a child and eventually went on to train such notable agencies as the Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin, and Kaiser Permanente (not to be confused with Kaiser Sosa). Upon completion of the course, students will be rewarded with a “Certificate of Completion”.

This .NET course covers the following topics:

    • How to install, configure, and navigate the .NET software development environment
    • How to configure master project settings, close projects, create single projects, and create multisolution projects
    • How to work with project elements, the properties window, and understand the different types of .NET projects programmers can create
    • Code organization techniques and best practices
    • How to use the Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE)

How to use SQL databases within Visual Studio code editor and how to create a database from scratch

This is a pretty solid course for beginners, because it really focuses on working within the .NET Framework environment and within the Visual Studio IDE, which some courses can skip over or not spend enough time on.

To sign-up for this .NET, visit its page at TechRepublic Academy: .NET Courses for Beginners.

Complete Guide to Building an App with .Net Core and React from Udemy

If you have read any of my other articles where I speak about the best online courses for programmers, you will know that I firmly believe in courses with a purpose outside of merely teaching a programming language’s syntax. The Complete Guide to Building an App with .Net Core and React is a course for developers that takes the approach of showing you how to start with the skeleton of a project and build it to completion using .NET Core and React (alongside the scripting language, TypeScript).

Created by instructor Neil Cummings, the course is fairly long, with 32 hours worth of content, broken down into 293 lectures. Upon finishing the course, students will be given a “Certificate of Completion” and will have finished building and designing their first full-fledged application.

This .NET course teaches the following:

  • How to setup, configure, and install the developer environment within the .NET Framework
  • How to install the required Visual Studio IDE code extensions for the project
  • How to create the API for the project, as well as, the Client
  • What the CQRS + Mediator pattern is and how to create a CRUD application using React and TypeScript
  • How to style a User Interface
  • How to perform error handling

To new developers, this might read as though it were a more intermediate-level .NET course, but since it spends a good portion exploring software development environments and frameworks, we thought it fit more under the beginner moniker.

To sign up for the course and learn more about the curriculum, visit the classes page on Udemy: Complete Guide to Building an App with .Net Core and React.

.NET MAUI course with Visual Studio 2022: Creating Projects from Udemy

This is another course that has a purpose beyond teaching just a language itself. In the .NET MAUI course with Visual Studio 2022: Creating Projects class, the focus is on use .NET MAUI to create a fully realized application. It is on the shorter side, making it easier to digest in a few sittings, weighing in at 10 hours or so, and somehow managing to still have 127 lectures, which are bite-sized for easier digestion.

Those taking this .NET programming class will learn:

  • How to install .NET MAUI
  • How to work with .NET MAUI Layouts, Controls, and Pages
  • How to use those controls to create applications
  • How to create mobile apps with C# and XAML
  • How to customize controls
  • The MVVM Pattern
  • How to work with CollectionViews
  • How to perform data binding operations

You can sign-up for this course by visiting its spot on Udemy: .NET MAUI course with Visual Studio 2022: Creating Projects.

Intermediate to Advanced .NET Courses

The courses in this next section all target programmers that have a basic understanding of the .NET Framework, .NET Core, and a relevant programming language, such as C#, F#, ASP.NET, or Visual Basic.

The Complete .NET & C# Developer Certification Bundle from TechRepublic Academy

The Complete .NET & C# Developer Certification Bundle is really a package of 10 .NET courses that will take a developer from the beginning stages of .NET development to the advanced levels. What is great about this particular programming bootcamp is that it teaches students solid, real-world coding principles, such as software architecture, design, and things like Unit Testing.

The bundle is pretty comprehensive as you might imagine, with 60 hours of content. By the end of the course, students will have enough knowledge to not only create their own .NET software, but also have the skills to land an entry-level job, assuming they are not a coder already who is just looking to pick up more skills – in which case they may find themselves in a position to pursue a new career path or make a higher salary.

The bundle teaches the following programming concepts:

  • Basic software architecture through principles such as Meta and SOLID
  • Unit Testing with NUnit and C#
  • Dependency Injection in C#
  • The TDD cycle in C#
  • Functional programming concepts
  • How to write clean C# code and best practices for doing so
  • Career prep, including interview questions and common C# puzzles
  • How to work with databases and LINQ in C#
  • Application automation concepts with developer tools like SpecFlow and Selenium WebDriver
  • How to work with data and algorithms in C#

You can sign up for this programming class by visiting: The Complete .NET & C# Developer Certification Bundle.

Design Patterns in C# and .NET from Udemy

Design patterns can be thought of as a solution for commonly occurring problems in a software development project. You can think of them as a sort of template designed to handle these issues in codebases and applications. The thing we like about this specific course is that it looks at design patterns and teaches students how to recognize these recurring problems and apply design patterns to fix them. It also teaches the concept of code refactoring in .NET and C# and the SOLID Design principle.

The C# design patterns taught in this course include:

  • Builder
  • Factories
  • Prototype
  • Singleton
  • Adapter
  • Bridge
  • Composite
  • Decorator

Developers can sign up for this course at Udemy by visiting: Design Patterns in C# and .NET.

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