Give a Little, Get a Little

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Give a Little, Get a Little

Help your community - or just help yourself - with your nextASP.NET project.

By Jonathan Goodyear

With the release of ASP.NET version 1.0 (as well asservice pack 1) several months behind us, many companies are beginning to givetheir developers the keys to the .NET cupboard. Unfortunately, a lot of othercompanies are still in a big holding pattern. If you are a developer at one ofthese more "cautious" companies, you might feel stalemated in your quest tolearn ASP.NET. I'd like to tell you about two different ways you can get somereal-world ASP.NET experience while waiting for your employer to catch up withtechnology.

One of the biggest problems with learning a new technologyon your own time is you typically don't get experience building a largersystem. Tackling a large project on your own can be daunting. The Florida .NETuser group (see References) recognized this problem and hatched an effectivesolution: band together and take on a project for a nonprofit or charitableorganization. The developers spearheading the project, Shervin Shakibi, DaveNoderer, and David Silverlight, felt they could forge a symbiotic relationshipbetween developers motivated to learn ASP.NET and nonprofit organizations thathad little resources to pay for quality developer talent. So they created a Website named Non-Profit Ways (see References).

Non-Profit Ways' first volunteer ASP.NET project is tobuild a Web site for a Chinese-American cultural association that works withchildren. The organization will use the Web site to allow table tennis playersto sign up for a tournament it is hosting as a warm-up to the U.S. Open ofTable Tennis. The site also will highlight information about the tournament andits participants.

This site could achieve several desirable outcomes. Thedevelopers will get to experiment with new technologies (particularly ASP.NET).The development community will be able to download the source code for free. Itwill open discussions to debate the techniques used (both good and bad) tobuild the site, which will then provide valuable lessons developers can take totheir next project, whether for charity or their full-time job. Developers alsowill get a real-world forum in which to demonstrate their talents not only totheir peers, but to prospective clients and future employers as well. Best ofall, a worthy organization will benefit from developers giving back to theircommunity.

I hope the nonprofit project idea catches on. Florida .NETis a member of the International .NET Association (INETA), so other .NET usergroups are likely to start looking into giving back to their own communities bybuilding Web sites for organizations that need their help. Contact your local.NET user group to get involved (see References). In the end, everybody canwin.

The second way you can get real-world ASP.NET experienceis a more capitalistic approach to learning: Build and sell your own .NETcomponents and source code. When Visual Basic was first released more than 10years ago, its features were limited. Many component companies that exist todaybuilt VBX and OCX controls to enhance the Visual Basic feature set. Back then,developing custom components and controls was difficult and time-consuming. Butthe .NET Framework's classes are built in a hierarchical manner usinginheritance. This includes ASP.NET's server controls. Therefore, you can useexisting server controls easily as the basis for more enhanced server controls.You also can get a lot of free help online to get started (see References).

Building and selling your own server controls has severalbenefits. First, you definitely can leverage your business domain knowledge.For example, if you work for a health-care company, you could build servercontrols to help streamline health-care Web site development. Developing servercontrols for your employer's industry also can come in handy when your employerfinally lets you develop in ASP.NET. Second, if you plan to sell the finalproduct upon completion of the project, you'll probably put more effort intoensuring its quality. You also must think about phases of the productdevelopment lifecycle you might otherwise forget about, including distribution,documentation, and support. In the context of .NET, mastering these otherphases is as important as learning the pure development phase. Finally, with alittle effort, you can build a nice secondary revenue flow. People can - andwill - buy quality ASP.NET server controls, whether to use them or learn fromtheir source code. This might not happen on your first attempt, but keep at it.I know of at least one developer whose ASP.NET server control development wassuccessful enough for him to leave his full-time job and go out on his own. Ifyou don't want to go through the hassle of setting up a credit card merchantaccount right away, you can use the PayPal payment service, combined withComponentOne's free PayPal eCommerce for ASP.NET component (see References).

I outlined two possibilities you can explore to getinvolved in ASP.NET development if you haven't already. The great part aboutthem is they both have benefits beyond the accumulation of ASP.NET developmentexperience. You either can help out your community or make some extra cash foryourself. Some other ideas you might try are building an ASP.NET Web site foryour community, starting your own .NET user group, building a Web site inASP.NET for your family, or rebuilding a Web site you built before (this timeusing ASP.NET). The key, however, is to actually get involved and buildsomething. Reading about ASP.NET in books, attending conferences, and surfingarticles on the Internet alone are not going to give you the exposure andexperience you need to tackle full-time ASP.NET development when theopportunity presents itself.

REFERENCES:

Jonathan Goodyear is president of ASPSoft (http://www.aspsoft.com), an Internetconsulting firm based in Orlando, Fla. He's a Microsoft Certified SolutionDeveloper (MCSD) and is author of Debugging ASP.NET (New Riders). Jonathan also is a contributingeditor for asp.netPRO.E-mail him at mailto:[email protected] orthrough his angryCoder eZine at http://www.angryCoder.com.

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